As of September 10, there were more than 6.5 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States. While many states experienced surges during the summer as they reopened their economies, daily reported cases were declining by at least 10 percent in Montana, Idaho, Kansas, and Hawaii.

President Donald Trump launched the Coronavirus Task Force on January 29, nine days after the first reported case in the country. Here is an introduction to four members of the task force:

One of the original 12 members named to the Coronavirus Task Force, Dr. Anthony Fauci is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He has served in this capacity since 1984, during which time he has oversaw research efforts designed to prevent and treat infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, HIV/AIDS, Ebola, and Zika. He has advised six presidents on global health concerns and was integral in the creation of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which has since helped save millions of lives worldwide.

Dr. Francis Collins was one of five new members appointed to the Coronavirus Task Force on May 15. Appointed as the 16th director of the NIH by President Barack Obama in 2009, Dr. Collins is a physician-geneticist who previously served 15 years as director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at NIH. He has discovered multiple disease genes and led the Human Genome Project. Dr. Collins recently received the Templeton Prize, which is named in honor of inventor John Templeton and awarded to individuals who "[harness] the power of the sciences to explore the deepest questions of the universe and humankind's place and purpose within it."

Health Resources and Services Administration administrator Thomas Engels was also added to the Coronavirus Task Force on May 15. He manages an annual budget of $11.9 billion to expand health care access via grants to state and local governments and, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, administered more than $2.5 billion in funding to health care providers. He also established the Provider Fund Relief to support health care workers.

Dr. Scott Atlas

A critic of COVID-19 lockdowns and a proponent of herd immunity, Dr. Scott Atlas was appointed to the Coronavirus Task Force in August 2020. A fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, he formerly served as chief of neuroradiology at the university’s medical center and has been a frequent guest on Fox News. In early September, 78 of Dr. Atlas’ former colleagues at Stanford issued an open letter that criticized him for peddling “falsehoods and misrepresentations of science” in his public statements about COVID-19.

Image credits:
Dr. Fauci - Flickr
Dr. Collins - Flickr
Mr. Engels - Wikipedia