TY - JOUR T1 - Governance of the Covid-19 response: a call for more inclusive and transparent decision-making JF - BMJ Global Health JO - BMJ Global Health DO - 10.1136/bmjgh-2020-002655 VL - 5 IS - 5 SP - e002655 AU - Dheepa Rajan AU - Kira Koch AU - Katja Rohrer AU - Csongor Bajnoczki AU - Anna Socha AU - Maike Voss AU - Marjolaine Nicod AU - Valery Ridde AU - Justin Koonin Y1 - 2020/05/01 UR - http://gh.bmj.com/content/5/5/e002655.abstract N2 - Summary boxNot all countries make their Covid-19 task force membership list public—the available information varies by country.There is currently a predominance of politicians, virologists and epidemiologists in the Covid-19 response at the country level.Experts on non-Covid-19 health, social and societal consequences of Covid-19 response measures are, for the most part, not included in Covid-19 decision-making bodies.There is little transparency regarding whom decision-making bodies are consulting as their source of advice and information.From the available data on Covid-19 decision-making entities, female representation is particularly paltry.In addition, civil society is hardly involved in national government decision-making nor its response efforts, barring some exceptions.We need to be more inclusive and multidisciplinary: the Covid-19 crisis is not simply a health problem but a societal one—it impacts every single person in society one way or another.Decision makers need to address more systematically the suffering from mental illness exacerbations, domestic violence, child abuse, child development delays, chronic diseases and so on, during lockdown.As SARS-COV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) ravages the globe, heads of state are making swift decisions to put large swathes of the world’s population under mass isolation in the race to heed off Covid-19’s lethality, particularly in certain population subgroups. How are these decisions—that affect each and every one of us, some groups disproportionately and regardless of Covid-19 status—made? How far have policy makers and politicians consulted those who have experience and expertise on the secondary effects of lockdowns, social isolation measures and movement restrictions?We attempted to address these questions with a rapid analysis of 24 countries’ Covid-19 task force compositions. The countries were selected to represent a range of geographies and income levels. As far as possible, we focused on governance bodies set up or activated to give scientific, or evidence-based, advice to … ER -