Reacting to crises: The COVID-19 impact on biostatistics/epidemiology

Most crises, though difficult and challenging to address, offer opportunities for change and for development of new perspectives or approaches to deal with traditional strategies. The reaction to and the managing of the COVID-19 pandemic has provided a platform for evaluating how we quantify disease prevalence, incidence, time courses and sequellae as well as how well we plan, design, analyze and interpret health care associated data, including clinical trials and electronic medical records and health claims data. Whether the Covid-19 crisis provides opportunities to advance the fields of biostatistics and epidemiology in select ways remains to be seen. This article describes three areas of crises experienced by the author during a career in the regulation of pharmaceutical products and how they were responded to. Some suggestions for potential future opportunities in reaction to the Covid-19 crises are provided.