White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci will meet with Biden’s Covid transition team for the first time.
Their online meeting signifies a crucial step toward coordination between Biden's Covid transition team and the top officials handling the federal government’s coronavirus pandemic response.
Dr. Fauci has already had a conversation with incoming White House chief of staff Ron Klain, but Thursday’s meeting will be the first time Dr. Fauci formally briefs Biden’s team.
The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has previously said he will remain in his post at NIAID.
In November, Dr. Fauci said that the Trump administration must work with the Biden transition team on coronavirus response.
“It’s almost like passing a baton in a race,” Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during an interview on “State of the Union.” “You don’t want to stop, and then give it to somebody, you want to just essentially keep going.”
Dr. Fauci said that the transition period is important. He believes that the process would be smoother if Donald Trump’s administration will work with the Biden transition team.
When asked if health authorities would benefit from cooperating with the Biden transition team, Dr. Fauci said, “Of course it would be better if we can start working with them.”
His statements came around the time President-elect Joe Biden also said that lack of coordination with the Trump administration could lead to more Covid deaths.
He said that “more people may die” from the coronavirus if there is a lack of coordination with the Trump administration, especially with vaccinating more than 300 million Americans against the virus.
“We are immediately getting them all of the pre-prepared transition briefing materials,” Azar said.
“We will ensure coordinated briefings with them to ensure they’re getting whatever information that they feel they need,” Azar stressed, explaining that the “transition planning and execution will be professional, cooperative and collaborative.”
The U.S. has reached 100,000 Covid hospitalizations as hospitals near the point of crisis care.
Dr. Janis Orlowski, chief health care officer at the Association of American Medical Colleges, told CNBC in a phone interview that she does not remember any illness sickening so many Americans all at once ever before.
“I don’t think we’ve ever seen this number. We certainly never saw this number with HIV or any of the other new diseases that we’ve had,” Orlowski said. “It’s an astonishing, astonishing number and the shame of it is it’s a number that we could have impacted and we didn’t.”
According to Orlowski’s organization, the AAMC, all health systems must prepare to implement “Crisis Standards of Care,” which is regularly used in situations such as the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and natural disasters.
