As the United States became the first nation in the world to surpass 10 million coronavirus infections since the pandemic began, United States President-elect Joe Biden has made fighting the coronavirus his immediate priority. Biden will announce a 12-member task force to tackle the pandemic on Monday, Reuters reported.
Why is addressing the Biden coronavirus the top priority?
Throughout the election campaign, Biden criticized President Trump’s handling of the pandemic. Wearing masks and confinement also became partisan issues, as Trump chose a lax approach to the pandemic. Democrats also cornered the Trump administration on the stimulus bill in the Senate. Therefore, the first order of business for Biden was expected to be action on the coronavirus. In his victory speech in Wilmington, Biden said, “I will spare no effort, no compromise, to reverse this pandemic.”
What would the coronavirus task force do?
The coronavirus task force will be tasked with developing a plan to contain the disease once Biden takes office in January. But there is a coronavirus task force in the White House that was established on January 29 and is led by Vice President Mike Pence. Deborah Birx has been the task force response coordinator and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci is one of the key members.
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Who could be the members of the working group?
A senior aide to Biden announced that the two co-chairs of the incoming administration task force would be: American Indian Vivek Murthy, former US Surgeon General, and David Kessler, former Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. Though not officially announced, Reuters reported that Marcella Nunez-Smith, a Yale physician and professor whose research focuses on health disparities, is expected to serve as the task force’s third co-chair.
How is Biden’s approach different from Trump’s?
Both Murthy and Kessler are widely known in public health and science. Kessler was appointed in 1990 by President George HW Bush, and served in President Clinton’s second term, leaving the agency in 1997 to become dean of the Yale School of Medicine. Murthy, himself a graduate of Yale medical school, was appointed United States Surgeon General under President Obama in 2014. Trump also has Dr. Anthony Fauci on his task force, but he has publicly criticized Fauci, including threatening to fire him. During the campaign, Trump continued to politicize the use of masks, confinement restrictions and social distancing rules that were established in several states. Biden, for his part, insisted on the importance of experts and urged people to “listen to science, to public health professionals.” The official site of the Biden-Harris campaign outlines a seven-point plan that will focus on increasing testing, availability of personal protective equipment, helping small businesses affected by the pandemic, protecting people who are in ‘ high risk ‘and implement the mask mandates at the national level. .
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