The COVID‐19 pandemic has been the world's greatest challenge since World War II. As an unprecedented global public health crisis, crisis management teams (CMTs) in the infected countries need to rethink to cope with the similar uncertainty and urgency of the ongoing COVID‐19 pandemic. The shared context of COVID‐19 allows us to explore a cross‐nation study of different constructs and CMT to communicate information about crises with the public effectively. Since the pandemic affected all countries, the comparison is warranted. Can CMTs mitigate the effects of COVID‐19? Based on the analysis of China and the US cases, our study explores how shared and common knowledge cognition among crisis responders plays a pivotal role in effective CMTs' communication while technological failures and inadequate information disrupt the system, worsening pandemics like COVID‐19. Furthermore, organizational dysfunction, such as institutional fragmentation, regulatory hurdles and bureaucratic arrogance, impede effective communication between CMTs. However, effective coordination and decisive leadership could improve coordination effectiveness and reduce crisis costs.