Our Recovery, and Where We Go From Here
The Pandemic Puzzle
Lessons from COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused millions of deaths, threatened the health of billions, and upended every aspect of society. Its impact will reverberate for decades to come, but COVID-19 won’t be the last global health threat of its kind. What we do next to prepare is critical. Through this ambitious conference series, Stanford Medicine and Stanford Graduate School of Business convened leading experts—across government, business, and health care—to discuss the global pandemic response, lessons for our recovery, and how we can build resilience to current and future health threats.
Featured Speakers

Soumya Swaminathan, MD

Francis Collins, MD, PhD

Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH

Robert Redfield, MD

Andy Slavitt

Marcella Nunez-Smith, MD

Janet Woodcock, MD

Sally Susman

Dean Li, MD, PhD

Melinda Richter

Kara Swisher

Loyce Pace, MPH

Kevin Ban, MD

David Rhew, MD

Charity Dean, MD, MPH&TM

Meena Seshamani, MD, PhD

Mandy Cohen, MD, MPH

Steve Davis, JD

David Saunders, MEd

Megan Zweig

Pete Gaynor

David Entwistle

Bonnie Maldonado, MD

Ruth O’Hara, PhD

Doug Owens, MD

David Magnus, PhD

Alyce Adams, PhD

Milana Trounce, MD

Nigam Shah, PhD

Grace, Lee, MD, MPH

Brian Murphy, PhD

Nicole Cooper, DrPH, MPH

John Barry

Julia Hoffman, PsyD

Yasmeen Abutaleb

Rear Admiral John Polowczyk

Diedra Henry-Spires

Gabriel Weintraub, PhD

Amit Seru, PhD

Michele J. Gelfand, PhD

Chad Jones, PhD

Seungjin "Jin" Whang, PhD

Samantha Artiga

Sara Cody, MD

Paul Farmer, MD, PhD

K. “Vish” Viswanath, PhD

Anne McDonald Pritchett, PhD

Alex Tabarrok, PhD

Joanne Kenen

Denise Forte

Brad Smith

Ruth Ann Norton

Meg Tirrell

Drew Armstrong
4-Part Virtual Symposium Series
SESSION #1:
Responding to a Global Pandemic
Friday, September 17, 2021
8:30am - 12:00pm PT
Responding to an existential health threat demands unprecedented coordination – at all levels of government, across health care, and numerous sectors of the economy. At this virtual kickoff event, stakeholders from these groups explore the individual and intersecting roles of government and business during a pandemic. Through presentations, panels, and fireside chats, leaders at the helm of the pandemic response debate the effectiveness of various response strategies to COVID-19 and lessons for the future.
SESSION #2:
Building Toward Health Equity and an Inclusive Recovery
Wednesday, October 13, 2021
8:30am - 11:45am PT
SESSION #3:
Tracking and Mitigating a 21st Century Pandemic
Thursday, October 28, 2021
10:30am - 1:55pm PT
SESSION #4:
Agile Discovery and Innovation: Advancing Tomorrow’s Vaccines, Treatments, and Cures
Friday, November 19, 2021
8:30am - 10:30am PT
Backstage Pass Videos
Session 1
Backstage Pass: Finding the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel
Session 2
Backstage Pass: Ensuring we have an inclusive recovery from COVID-19
Session 3
Backstage Pass: How do we prepare for future pandemics?
Session 4
Backstage Pass: How do we build on the innovation from COVID-19?
Session 1
Vaccines’ historic success undermined by public health failures

Leaders and experts from government, academia, health care and business critiqued the U.S. and global response to the pandemic and assessed its lasting impact on the first day of “The Pandemic Puzzle: Lessons from COVID-19.”
Session 2
With health equity, top-down answers won’t work, speakers say

In the second installment of “The Pandemic Puzzle: Lessons from COVID-19,” leaders and experts from government, academia, health care and business said the road to health equity begins and ends in the underserved communities.
Session 2
Pandemic Puzzle: Health disparities and equitable recovery

Last week, the second event of the Pandemic Puzzle, a virtual symposium series that examines how the United States — and the world — responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, hosted experts who identified ways to better prepare for the next global disease crisis.
Session 3
Pandemic shows need to overhaul public health system, experts say

In the third installment of “The Pandemic Puzzle: Lessons from COVID-19,” leaders and experts in government, academia, health care and business said the U.S. government must step up to build and coordinate a true, robust public health system.
Session 4
Pandemic sparked key innovations, experts say

In the final installment of “The Pandemic Puzzle: Lessons from COVID-19,” leaders in government, academia, health care and business said biomedical and digital health advances of the
last few years will help combat future health crises.
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