I believe managing a pandemic should be viewed as an engineering task, where the medical advisors to the President, approach their responsibility as a balancing act, providing advice that produces the optimum results for individual citizens, and the country as a whole. I think it was absolutely reckless and destructive, when Dr. Fauci said or suggested at the beginning of the surge in deaths due to the coronavirus, that his concern was only about the immediate situation of saving people’s lives from COVID-19. That is like an engineer saying after the plane he built crashed, that his only concern was getting the plane off the ground – not how it flew after takeoff, or how it landed.

I believe also in times of crisis like pandemics, where the matter is technical and new, it is best to use a crowdsourcing model, where the best and most innovative minds throughout the country and around the world, can examine and contribute to the development of solutions to the problem at hand. Crowdsourcing also leads to transparency, which deters malfeasance, and the politicization of the management process.

Crowdsourcing a pandemic would be fairly simple to do. Simply create a discussion board, where varied aspects of the pandemic could be discussed by contributors around the world. You could also allow files to be uploaded and downloaded containing texts, presentations, and data. Medical advisors could glean the best solutions, as they shape their overall strategy. The public would also be able to see the technical justifications, for the various aspects of the President’s strategy.