President-elect Joe Biden has announced the members of his COVID task force. And guess what? They are all doctors and scientists.
Not included: the guy from “My Pillow” or anyone from Clorox.
Dr. Anthony Fauci can’t join until Biden and Kamala Harris are sworn in on January 20th. He’s still the head of the NIAID and he’s still got to deal with Trump and Pence until then. Dr. Deborah Birx is shopping for scarves.
Here are the members of the task force. Note: this is what it means when you say “I’ll get the best people.”
· Ezekiel Emanuel, chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
· Atul Gawande, a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School who is a prolific author.
· Michael T. Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
· Eric Goosby, global AIDS coordinator under President Barack Obama and professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine.
· Celine R. Gounder, clinical assistant professor of medicine and infectious diseases at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine.
· Julie Morita, executive vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a philanthropy focused on health issues.
· Loyce Pace, president and executive director of the Global Health Council, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization dedicated to global health issues.
· Robert Rodriguez, professor of emergency medicine at the UCSF School of Medicine.
Rebecca Katz, director of the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University Medical Center, and Beth Cameron, director for global health security and biodefense on the White House National Security Council during the Obama administration, are serving as advisers to the transition task force.
