National Academies: “On May 20, 2021, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine held a virtual convening of public health and communications practitioners to examine the challenges, opportunities, and lessons they saw while executing effective communications and community engagement in response to the COVID-19 pandemic….Participants in the convening discussed how communicating about COVID-19 to their audiences and communities was hindered by various factors. Among the factors cited were the enormity of the challenge; the speed at which the pandemic was evolving; and misinformation and disinformation being distributed by the news media and social media. Another frequently cited factor was the change in presidential administrations in the United States during the period of the first COVID-19 vaccine rollout in late 2020, which had further complicated efforts at national-level coordination, noted several participants. Another challenge identified was related to the gaps in coordination among federal, tribal, state, and local governments, which resulted in part from their independence from one another. In addition, disparities in how the COVID-19 pandemic was affecting different communities—and how the response to it was being designed and delivered (e.g., access to a vaccine)—posed and continues to pose significant challenges not just in addressing the public health crisis, but also in communicating accurately and effectively about it. Participants in the convening were keenly aware of the vast disparities in the impact of COVID-19 on communities of color and tribal nations resulting from deeply embedded systemic racism. They acknowledged how the broader environment of systemic racism impacts every aspect of crisis communications…In many ways, the May 20 meeting of public health communications practitioners offered a snapshot of what was happening in the United States at that particular moment in the pandemic. While there was some cautious optimism that the country was approaching (or had already passed) an infection point in the progress of the pandemic, this was tempered by the realization that it was not yet over, and some communities were continuing to be disproportionately impacted in the United States and around the world…”