I'm going to tell you something good this morning. I spent most of my adult life (~30 years)outside of academia, working with non-governmental organizations from New York to South Africa. Activists, front-line service providers, docs, nurses fighting AIDS, TB were my comrades. 1/

I trusted them with my life, because we shared a passion to keep people alive that would set us upon Presidents and Prime Ministers, drug companies, sluggish bureaucracies the world over. They were relentless advocates for the sick, poor and marginalized. 2/

It was the greatest honor of my life to call many of these people friends, and in the midst of #COVID19, they're back again fighting another epidemic, our own government, drug companies, and those bureaucracies again. 3/

But I've been suspicious of the new colleagues that I've found myself w in academia, boxed in by working for the corporations we call universities, made to jump through years-long hoops to get job security, tied to conventions of their fields. Where would they be in a crisis? 4/

Right at the front lines. The ones who are doctors, nurses are just astounding caregivers ( @RWalensky @CarlosdelRio7), researchers putting their skills to develop tests ( @NathanGrubaugh @awyllie13), developing models to understand this pandemic ( @WeinbergerDan, @BillHanage) 5/

Some have found their voice, are eloquent translators of scientific information to the public ( @nataliexdean, @CT_Bergstrom, @thehowie), many of them have lined up to submit affidavits to secure release of the incarcerated from jails, protect a woman's right to choose. 6/

Many have put their research groups to the task of helping their community from West ( @SalomonJA) to East ( @fcraw4d). Some of spoken out about the inequities in care ( @BenjaminLinas @jabarocas) as fierce as any AIDS activist. 7/

There are many more, from @SandySpringerMD, @akapczynski, @weparmet, @MikeWishnie, @ted_h_cohen, @SaadOmer3 @Ginpitz @SVermund @RYaesoubi who amaze me every day. 8/

So do you want hope? It's there from my old comrades in HIV/AIDS who now fight for all of us at risk from #COVID19, to the new colleagues in the ivory tower who are anything but "ivory-tower," and are putting everything they've got into this fight. 9/

Yes, I am angry every day of this pandemic. But today, I am grateful for all these people. end/