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President-elect Joe Biden has announced a COVID-19 advisory board, underscoring that his administration’s priority will be controlling the COVID-19 pandemic. The task force, which includes three Californians, will advise the incoming Biden administration as it prepares to orchestrate a federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 13-member task force will be led by three physicians:
- David A. Kessler, professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and former Food & Drug Administration commissioner, who served under presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton
- Vivek Murthy, surgeon general in the Obama administration
- Marcella Nunez-Smith, professor of medicine at Yale University, who focuses on equity in health care for disadvantaged populations
Other members of the task force include:
- Rick Bright, former head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority under the Trump administration
- Luciana Borio, former director for medical and biodefense preparedness on President Trump’s National Security Council
- Atul Gawande, high-profile surgeon and professor who led Haven, the joint venture between Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPM, and served as a Department of Health & Human Services senior adviser during the Clinton administration
- Michael Osterholm, a renowned infectious disease specialist at the University of Minnesota and former science envoy for health security for the State Department
- Eric Goosby, infectious disease expert and professor of medicine at UCSF and founding director of the largest federally funded HIV/AIDS program during the Clinton administration
- Robert Rodriguez, UCSF emergency physician and professor of emergency medicine
- Loyce Pace, executive director and president of the Global Health Council
- Ezekiel Emanuel, oncologist and chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, who has served as chair of the Department of Bioethics at The Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health since 1997
- Celine Gounder, clinical assistant professor at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine, who served as assistant commissioner and director of the Bureau of Tuberculosis Control at New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
- Julie Morita, executive vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, who helped lead Chicago’s Department of Public Health for nearly 20 years