There have been more than 16 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 and more than 300,000 deaths from the novel coronavirus in the US as of December 14, 2020. Since winning the 2020 presidential election, President-elect Joe Biden has been busy building a team of experts to mitigate the spread of the virus and lessen the strain on the US healthcare system. Promising to listen to epidemiologists and other medical experts, he announced a new COVID-19 Task Force in November. The following are four of the 13 members initially appointed to the task force:
Dr. Vivek Murthy
Former surgeon general under President Barack Obama, Dr. Vivek Murthy is one of three co-chairs of President-elect Biden's COVID-19 advisory board. Among other accomplishments, Dr. Murthy founded the healthcare reform advocacy group Doctors for America and has been involved in the response to both Ebola and the Zika virus. This past October, Dr. Murthy spoke about his concerns regarding misinformation and the decline of public trust in the government's ability to effectively manage the pandemic:
"A lot of this starts with us recognizing what's going to guide us through this," he told Dr. Abraham Verghese in an episode of the Medicine and the Machine podcast. "It's going to be science. It's going to be the research that's being done. It's going to be the best practices that we've developed, from epidemic after epidemic, pandemic after pandemic, that we've worked on over the years."
Dr. David Kessler
Another of the COVID-19 advisory board’s three co-chairs, Dr. David Kessler served as FDA commissioner under Presidents Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush. In this post, he stressed the importance of ensuring political biases do not interfere with FDA and medical decision-making. Upon leaving the FDA in 1997, Dr. Kessler was appointed dean of Yale Medical School.
Rick Bright, PhD
The sole member of the task force who served under President Trump, Rick Bright is the former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. He has been critical of the Trump administration's management of the pandemic and was reportedly demoted from his post for opposing the use of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19.
Dr. Celine R. Grounder
An experienced physician and medical journalist, Dr. Celine R. Grounder works at New York University's Grossman School of Medicine, where she is a clinical assistant professor of medicine and infectious diseases. She also hosts the In Sickness and in Health podcast, which focuses on the intersection between health and social justice. She has worked to combat tuberculosis and HIV outbreaks in New York City as well as in South America and Africa.