André Calero Valdez, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany; Emil N. Iftekhar, Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organisation, Göttingen, Germany; Miquel Oliu-Barton, Paris-Dauphine University, Paris, France, and Bruegel, Brussels, Belgium; Robert Böhm, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria, and University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark; Sarah Cuschieri, Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, University of Malta, Msida, Malta; Thomas Czypionka, Institute for Advanced Studies Vienna, Vienna, Austria, and London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK; Uga Dumpis, Pauls Stradins University Hospital, University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia; Giulia Giordano, University of Trento, Trento, Italy; Claudia Hanson, Karolinska Institute, Solna, Sweden; Zdenek Hel, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, USA; Anna Helova, Sparkman Center for Global Health and Department of Health Policy and Organisation, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, USA; Ilona Kickbusch, Global Health Centre, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland; Peter Klimek, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria, and Complexity Science Hub Vienna, Vienna, Austria; Lilian Kojan, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany; Mirjam Kretzschmar, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands; Tyll Krueger, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, Wroclaw, Poland; Jenny Krutzinna, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway; Berit Lange, Helmholtz Center for Infection Research, Braunschweig, Germany; Jeffrey V Lazarus, Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), Hospital Clínic, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain; Helena Machado, Institute for Social Sciences, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal; Martin McKee, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK; Kai Nagel, TU Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Matjaž Perc, University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia, Department of Medical Research, China Medical University Hospital, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan; Elena Petelos, University of Crete, Heraklion, Greece, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands; Nedyu Popivanov, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and Sofia University, Sofia, Bulgaria; Bary Pradelski, CNRS, Grenoble, France, and Oxford-Man Institute, Oxford, UK; Barbara Prainsack, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria; Kay Schroeder, Zuyd University of Applied Sciences, Heerlen, The Netherlands; Sotirios Tsiodras, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Medical School, Athens, Greece; Paul Wilmes, University of Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg; Guntram Wolff, Bruegel, Brussels, Belgium, and Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium. Competing interests: ZH received grants from the National Institutes of Health. JVL has received funding from AbbVie, Gilead Sciences, MSD, Intercept, Janssen, NovoVax, has participated in a board for the study ‘Same-visit hepatitis C testing and treatment to accelerate cure among people who inject drugs (The QuickStart Study): a cluster randomised control trial - Australia’, and he is Vice-Chair of the EASL International Liver Foundation, all of which is unrelated to this work. MMK has received funding from the EU Horizon Europe, Wellcome Trust, and UKRI, and is part of Independent SAGE (UK) which is non-remunerated. KN has received funding from the TU Berlin and the BMBF (German Federal Ministry of Education and Research). BPrainsack is a member of the Austrian National Bioethics Committee advising the Federal Government, and in other COVID-19 related advisory positions, all of which are not remunerated. PW has received funding from the Luxembourg National Research Fund and the University of Luxembourg, is co-speaker of the Research Luxembourg COVID-19 Task Force and president of the Luxembourg Society for Microbiology. All other authors have no competing interests.