General

We believe that current methods for managing and ending the pandemic such as lockdowns and vaccines are suboptimal or even dangerous. (see FAQ)
We believe that this situation emerged due to lack of interdisciplinary work.
We try to fix this by using very broad interdisciplinary approach that strives to provide better alternatives that are effective for managing the pandemic, saving lives, and ultimately ending the pandemic.

We are not just against current methods, we provide alternatives.
We do not want to waste our time and energy with conspiracy theories.
If there are in fact conspiracies, they will reveal itself or silently stop when better alternatives are proposed.

How this taskforce is organized:

This taskforce is a non-profit, volunteer-based organization.

This taskforce is a “demilitarized zone”, i.e., we do not engage in polarization and ad-hominem attacks.
We accept professionals from both polarization poles and especially from the silent majority in the middle.
This taskforce is based on science, i.e., evidence based.
Where scientific evidence is missing, we will investigate the situation to find out what really applies, based on evidence and scientific work.

This is a scientific organization and not a political one.
Political activists and activism are NOT welcome and will not be tolerated.

The taskforce should be fast-paced but without compromising scrutiny.
I.e. it should have as little bureaucratic and organizational hurdles, and provide efficient collaboration.

The taskforce is organized in workgroups that tackle specific topics and provide reports with the current result.
Reports are open for public peer review and can be adapted based on that.

Results should be presented in text form, and not in video format because text is more efficient to consume, and therefore will not hog as much resources as video.

Workgroups

Workgroups have a defined set of members in order to avoid information overload.
As far as possible, the discussions of workgroups will be made in public, but only members of a group can participate in the discussion in order to prevent information overload.
If professionals in some relevant discipline think that they have something important to contribute, they can apply for membership of a workgroup, even after the workgroup has started working.
We need to define an application process that does not overwhelm the current members of a workgroup.
We also need to define a process for submitting comments to a workgroup that prevents information overload, i.e., that only lets important comments be passed to the workgroup.

New workgroups can be created at any time.
We will define a process for creating new workgroups.
There will a list of workgroups on the website.

Some examples of workgroups

• One workgroup will identify technological solutions for reducing indoor transmission, and define technical specifications that such solution have to meet to be considered effective.
  This should have members from at least the following disciplines:
  Virology/Epidemiology/Infectiology, ventilation engineering, physics, chemistry.
• One workgroup will define improved methods for measuring the current state of the pandemic in countries.
  This involves statistical methods and testing methods.
  Current methods are suboptimal because they are not statistically sound, and because the correlation between a positive PCR-test and being actually infectious gets weaker with higher Ct-values.
  And because some PCR-testing uses primers that do not differentiate between Sars-Cov-2 and other viruses.
  Improved methods will provide us with better quality of data, and therefore allows for more effective decision making.
  This should have members from at least the following disciplines:
  Statistics, Virology/Epidemiology/Infectiology, experts in PCR-tests and other test methods, medical doctors, especially in disciplines like ENT, pulmology, computer scientists, …
• workgroup identifying other new and existing methods for reducing the spread, i.e., reducing the R-factor
  Then create new workgroups for each of the identified methods, with the aim at working out the details
• workgroup aiming at analyzing and improving contact tracing methods
• workgroup identifying prophylactic measures for reducing the susceptibility for a serious form of Covid-19 or death.
  There are some ideas floating around, such as Vitamin-D supplementation.
  We need to gather all relevant ideas, find existing scientific literature about them and/or then check them scientifically.
• workgroup about treatment methods and medication.
• workgroup scrutinizing current vaccines, and for finding out whether those vaccines could be useful in limited applications, e.g., for very high-risk groups.

Collaboration Tools:

We need to use collaboration tools that are reliable.

This especially means that they should not be controlled by a single 3rdparty who can take them down or censor at any time.
And everybody has to be able to download a full backup and store it on their device locally, just in case that there is a loss of data.
Or a method that provides ongoing local storage.
We also need to have a way to search all past discussions, so tools that discard old messages are not acceptable.
We may need some compromises at the start, but that’s where we should head pretty quickly.

The central hub for the task force will be the website.

Reports and other documents will be written in Open-Document-Text format because this format seems to be most accessible to everyone, which is important for interdisciplinary work.
The format also supports mathematical formulas: Libreoffice contains a formula editor. (Menu: Insert->Object->Formula in LibreOffice)
It is supported by OpenOffice, LibreOffice, and to some extent also by newer versions of Microsoft Word.
We encourage to use LibreOffice.
All reports will also be published in PDF format.
We will provide a template for writing a report, and instructions for using the formula editor in LibreOffice, and for installing LibreOffice.

FAQ:

Q: Why do you look for alternatives to lockdowns?

A: Lockdowns, while somehow effective short-term, cause huge collateral damage, as is well-known in the meantime.
Therefore they are not a sustainable method for controlling and ending the pandemic.

Q: What is your problem with vaccines?

A: Vaccines are the wrong method to end the pandemic, primarily because of safety considerations:
Vaccines need long-term studies for recognizing long-term effects. Long-term means 5 years or more.
These studies are obviously not possible in the time-frame that’s desirable for ending the pandemic.
Without long-term studies we cannot know whether long term adverse side-effects will occur, how frequently they occur, and which side-effect will occur.

Worst-case, without long-term studies, almost everybody who gets the vaccine will have severe long-term side-effects that render them incapable to work, and possible needing around the clock medical care.
If a large part of the population will have already been vaccinated before such side-effects will be discovered, then this will obviously have devastating consequences, such as a complete break down of the economy, government, infrastructure and food production and supply. And there won’t be anybody who can provide care for those suffering the severe side-effects, i.e., they will all die.

The topic of long-term side effects is especially critical because many auto-immune diseases have a slow onset, i.e., they only start to show clinical symptoms after many years.
Since vaccines mess with the immune system, triggering auto-immune diseases is an important potential side-effect to look at.

On top of that there are other concerns about efficacy, e.g, Vaccines aim at generating antibodies.
But antibodies are not efficient to combat respiratory tract infections above a certain viral load because then, viruses will outnumber antibodies.
Respiratory tract infections can have a high viral load.
T-cell immunity is much more effective to deal with high viral loads because a T-cell can continue doing its work after killing a virus-producing cell.
Whereas an antibody is locked to a virus permanently and can therefore not be reused.
No vaccine aims at inducing T-cell immunity.

There are more concerns.

Open Questions:

• How should this organization be called?
  its full name and its acronym.
  Domainname probably under .org and using the acronym.
• Ideas, comments for how this should be organized.
• Logo, Branding etc
• Anybody interested to volunteer and help me build and run that organization?