Ideally, our presence as observers will be seen as helpful to responders who want their hard work and stories shared. We recognize that, during emergencies, local practitioners are busy. We do not want our presence to divert important resources from response activities.

We will only share information that we believe is useful to the broader community of practitioners and policymakers. We aim to gather information on challenges inherent to outbreak response, not to identify shortcomings or audit any particular response or organization. 

We respect the intellectual property and contributions of practitioners and others involved in the local response. We have no interest in taking credit for their accomplishments and discoveries. Though academic publications are not our priority, any that arise from our involvement will be coordinated with local practitioners, and authorship will be assigned as appropriate.

We believe it is important for local practitioners to share their stories. Ideally, local practitioners would serve as lead authors in developing academic articles about the operational challenges encountered and the lessons learned during their outbreak response. We also realize that practitioners are busy. In these cases, we are happy to lead the effort to document and publish pertinent findings, in close collaboration with local co-authors.

Establishing, maintaining, and utilizing robust disease surveillance systems to enable rapid event detection and characterization, as well as conducting necessary epidemiological activities and maintaining situational awareness during response operations.

Implementing effective and feasible non-pharmaceutical interventions (eg, social distancing, masks, quarantine and isolation, improved hygiene) and other non-medical strategies to limit or interrupt disease transmission during outbreaks, both in the community and in healthcare settings.

Establishing and implementing rapid and effective distribution and dispensing protocols for applicable medical countermeasures (eg, vaccines, antibiotics, antivirals, immunoglobulin) in the midst of outbreak response.

Building the necessary relationships and shared experience to integrate public health activities, particularly those implemented in the community, with healthcare facility operations to support a comprehensive response to outbreaks.

Identifying the resources (eg, financial, personnel) and other support (eg, guidance, policy) required to facilitate the development and operation of sustainable public health and healthcare capabilities and capacity for outbreak response operations.

Identifying effective strategies for communicating with and educating the public, with a particular focus in engaging with high-risk and vulnerable populations, before, during, and after the response to improve the adoption of evidence-based protective actions.