A group of multi-disciplinary professionals, who perceived the global reaction to Covid, and lockdown in particular, as overwrought and damaging to the point of causing a great tear in the fabric of society, established PANDA (Pandemics Data & Analytics) in April 2020. As a politically and economically independent organisation, PANDA seeks to develop science-based explanations and test them against international data. Policy recommendations for governments and other institutions can be developed from these. PANDA stands for open science and rational debate, for replacing flawed science with good science and for retrieving liberty and prosperity from the clutches of a dystopian “new normal”.