LAUSR

Over the past 3 months, for most of us engaged in academic neurology practice or neurology research, life has changed drastically. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis has disrupted lives on a global scale, and of course has led to 57,640 deaths through April 28, 2020. The pandemic has forced innumerable changes in the delivery of health care, which have occurred on a very compressed time scale requiring significant improvisation and creativity. For academic neurologists these changes have included the redeployment, for some, into unfamiliar environments (eg, medical intensive care units [ICUs] treating patients with COVID-19 pneumonia). For others, the main change has been to learn how to maintain clinical services for urgent neurological disorders while maximizing safety for both patients and staff. Some of the biggest and perhaps most surprising changes have been in the collaborations among academia, industry, and government. Over 85 companies have entered vaccine research in the past 2 months, and more than 60 are involved in antivirals. Private entities, like the Gates and Rockefeller Foundations, have supplanted governments and international entities to become the major organizational forces orchestrating these changes.