On Wednesday, President Donald Trump announced that Vice President Mike Pence would be in charge of the US response to coronavirus.
Trump directed government health officials and researchers to coordinate with Pence to combat the ongoing coronavirus spread.
Pence conducted an official meeting by creating a coronavirus task force that comprises some of the country’s top public health officials. He made it clear that the team would report to him.
“I’m leading the task force,” Pence told reporters at the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Trump said that Pence would coordinate the US response to coronavirus, aka COVID-19, which has been spreading rapidly across the world. https://www.myhealthyclick.com/vice-president-mike-pence-will-be-in-charge-of-the-us-response-to-coronavirus/
So far, the virus has affected 85,210 and killed 2,924 people globally, with the vast majority of the cases reported in China, where the outbreak began. The United States has reported 66 confirmed cases of coronavirus so far.
The health officials said Pence’s goal is not to control what they say but to make sure their efforts are properly coordinated.
The vice president said that he had selected Dr. Deborah Birx to serve as the coronavirus response coordinator in the White House. She is an experienced physician and scientist who has served as Ambassador-at-Large and United States Global AIDS Coordinator since 2014.
Dr. Birx is now the third person to have been assigned as the administration’s primary coronavirus official, with Pence and HHS Secretary Alex Azar.
The White House said Dr. Birx would “bring her infectious disease, immunologic, vaccine research and interagency coordinating capacity to this position.”
On Wednesday, Trump said, “Mike is going to be in charge, and Mike will report back to me.”
Pence said it would be Dr. Birx and Mr. Azar, for his part, remains the chairman of the federal coronavirus task force.
In the Thursday’s meeting with Pence, Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), described the consequences of COVID-19 on Americans, stating, “this virus has adapted extremely well to human species,”
He noted that the virus appeared to have a relatively higher mortality rate than the flu. “We are dealing with a serious virus,” said Dr. Fauci.
Trump’s decision to bring in Pence was not without controversy.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she directly questioned Pence about his new role given that as governor, he had “slashed” the public health budget in Indiana.
“I spoke with the vice president this morning, made some of these concerns known to him,” said Pelosi.
“We have always had a very candid relationship and I expressed to him the concern that I had of his being in this position.” The original article appeared in the New York Times.
