The covid-19 pandemic caught the world off guard and, when the virus broke out in Catalonia, Joan Guix (Barcelona, 1950) was the highest authority in public health in the country. He was at the forefront of the health emergency and lived with uncertainty the arrival of a new disease caused by an unknown virus that was fully impacting a health system ill-prepared to face it. An epidemiologist and doctor in preventive medicine and public health, Guix was the number two in the Department of Health during the first months of the crisis, and also the person who represented Catalonia in the meetings of the interterritorial council with the Ministry of Health.