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President-elect Joe Biden has joined dozens of transition workers and spans several federal agencies, in a sign of the comprehensive approach that Biden is planning to take to combat the worsening pandemic.
The Covid-19 team has not yet been formally announced, it met virtually for the first time on Tuesday and is expected to lay the groundwork for a White House Covid-19 response team to be created after Biden’s inauguration.
The team’s work will be delayed until the Trump administration authorizes a presidential transition – a delay that keeps the transition team out of federal agencies and that health officials fear may delay the response to the pandemic.
According to information published by the media, the team is made up of 52 transition workers, including representatives who review almost all major federal agencies, with plans to meet by video call once a day. Biden also recruited dozens of other health experts and academics at the state level to serve as subject matter experts who can help with specific policy initiatives. Biden’s 13-member coronavirus task force should also be integrated into the Covid-19 transition team.
These team leaders will coordinate efforts with transition officials assigned to individual agencies, such as Health and Human Services, Homeland Security and State departments.
The team’s “domestic” work is led by a group of five who include Sarah Bianchi, a top economic and domestic policy advisor to Biden when he was vice president. Transitional officers in this group include Johns Hopkins infectious disease specialist Tom Inglesby and Luciana Borio, a former FDA employee and member of the National Security Council.
The work of the “national security / foreign policy” team is led by Rebecca Katz, director of the Center for Global Health Science and Security in Georgetown and Dylan George, a former biological threat expert in the Obama administration. Members include Craig Fugate, who is on the Biden Homeland Security review team, and Deborah Rosenblum, a member of the Department of Defense review team.
The team’s third specialty, “technology strategy delivery,” is led by a five-person team that includes Mina Hsiang, from health care company Devoted Health, and Amy Pitelka, a technology policy and legal expert
Finally, the specific item to be discussed is the need to classify what critical information about the response to the pandemic the transition team should prioritize collection, whenever the Trump administration allows it.
