fritz francois: indeed, it was very difficult. it's something that you don't -- you can't prepare for. for us at nyu langone, the experience was a little bit different because we went through a crisis back in 2012, superstorm sandy, that then allowed us to do something different, which is to start preparing for what ifs. and believe it or not, back in the fall of 2019, we prepared for such a what if we asked the question, what if there was an outbreak of middle east respiratory syndrome? and we held that tabletop exercise on january 8th, 2020 and had more than a six week lead time to prepare, and that helped our staff to deal with all the uncertainties that covid brought. ali: to that end, doctor francois, if i could stick with you, what lessons have you and your colleagues derived from the early days of the pandemic that they might apply to such emergencies in the future? dr. fritz francois: i think the most important lesson is, to the extent possible, to be prepared. and what i mean by that is that there are a lot that we don't