By Carla Garnett
Dr. Francis Collins convenes the second consecutive ACD meeting virtually via Zoom.
For the first day of the December meeting of the advisory committee to the NIH director (ACD), the ACD might well have stood for All-Covid Deliberations. The majority of the agenda was devoted to the novel coronavirus that has wreaked havoc worldwide, isolating people physically if not emotionally from family and friends, and forcing most industries and institutions to operate remotely as much as possible.
Indeed, for the second consecutive meeting (the first was last June), the ACD was held virtually via Zoom.
Opening the 121st gathering of the group, and speaking from his dining room by way of computer, NIH director Dr. Francis Collins used a slide presentation to describe “just what a desperate situation we now find ourselves in and how much we need science to come to the rescue as quickly as possible,” he said. “[This is] visual evidence of why some of us are so deep