A panel discussion held in MRC Gambia at The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, recorded in front of a live audience of scientists in January 2020, when SARS-CoV-2 was just beginning to be reported as an emerging infectious disease. The panel consisted of Andrew Page and David Baker from the Quadram Institute, Ozan Gundogdu from LSHTM (UK), Abdul Sesay from LSHTM (Gambia) and Nick Loman from the University of Birmingham and chaired by Suzie Hingley-Wilson from the University of Surrey. Questions, discussion and comments from: Mark Pallen - Quadram Institute Muna Anjum - APHA Arnoud van Vliet - University of Surrey Martin Antonio - LSHTM Archie Worwui - LSHTM Unfortunately we weren’t able to capture the audio from Nick Loman who joined via Skype, but he did make really great contributions.