Ronald Alan Klain is an American attorney, political consultant, and former lobbyist who served as White House chief of staff under President Joe Biden from 2021 to 2023.
David Aaron Kessler is an American pediatrician, attorney, author, and administrator serving as Chief Science Officer of the White House COVID-19 Response Team since 2021. Kessler was the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from November 8, 1990, to February 28, 1997. He co-chaired the Biden-Harris transition’s COVID-19 Advisory Board from November 2020 to January 2021 and was the head of Operation Warp Speed, the U.S. government program to accelerate the development of COVID-19 vaccines and other treatments, from January to February 2021.
Jeffrey Dunston Zients is an American business executive and government official, serving as the 31st White House chief of staff in the administration of U.S. president Joe Biden. Earlier in the Biden administration, he served as counselor to the president and White House coronavirus response coordinator from January 2021 to April 2022.
Andrew M. Slavitt is an American businessman and healthcare advisor who served as the acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services from March 2015 to January 2017 and as a temporary Senior Advisor to the COVID-19 Response Coordinator in the Biden administration. A leader of the team that helped to repair the healthcare.gov website after its initial rollout, he was nominated by Barack Obama to run CMS in July 2015. In January 2021, Slavitt accepted a temporary role as Senior Pandemic Advisor to President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 pandemic response team. He stepped down from that role in June 2021.
Luciana Borio is a Brazilian-American infectious disease physician and public health administrator. She is a vice president at In-Q-Tel. She previously served as director for Medical and Biodefense Preparedness at the National Security Council, acting chief scientist of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), assistant commissioner for counterterrorism policy of the FDA, and director of FDA's Office of Counterterrorism and Emerging Threats. She is known for her work advancing clinical trials, the development of medical countermeasures for health emergencies, and the public health responses to Ebola and Zika outbreaks.
Vivek Hallegere Murthy is an American physician and a vice admiral in the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps who has served as the 19th and 21st surgeon general of the United States under Presidents Obama, Trump, and Biden. Murthy is the first surgeon general of Indian descent, and, during his first term as surgeon general, he was the youngest active duty flag officer in federal uniformed service.
Vincent Mai is an American businessman and philanthropist. He was born, and grew up, in South Africa. He is the founder, chairman and CEO of The Cranmere Group, an investment holding company. The Cranmere Group focuses on investing in businesses to develop and hold for the long term. Formerly he was the CEO and chairman of AEA Investors, one of the oldest private equity firms in the United States.
Deborah Leah Birx is an American physician and diplomat who served as the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator under President Donald Trump from 2020 to 2021. Birx specializes in HIV/AIDS immunology, vaccine research, and global health. Starting in 2014, she oversaw the implementation of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program to support HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention programs in 65 countries. From 2014-2020, Birx was the United States global AIDS coordinator for presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump and served as the United States special representative for global health diplomacy between 2015 and 2021. Birx was part of the White House Coronavirus Task Force from February 2020 to January 2021. In March 2021, Birx joined ActivePure Technology as Chief Medical and Science Advisor.
Ashish Kumar Jha is an Indian-American general internist physician and academic who served as the White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator from 2022-2023. He has been Dean of the Brown University School of Public Health since 2020. Prior to Brown, he was the K.T. Li Professor of Global Health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, faculty director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, and a Senior Advisor at Albright Stonebridge Group. Jha is recognized as one of the leading health policy scholars in the nation. Jha's role at Brown University focuses on improving the quality and cost of health care, and on the impact of public health policy.
Céline R. Gounder is an American physician and medical journalist who specializes in infectious diseases and global health. She was a member of the COVID-19 Advisory Board transition team of then-incoming U.S. president Joe Biden. In 2022, she joined the Kaiser Family Foundation as senior fellow and editor-at-large for public health at Kaiser Health News.
The White House Coronavirus Task Force was the United States Department of State task force during the Trump administration that "coordinate[d] and overs[aw] the administration's efforts to monitor, prevent, contain, and mitigate the spread" of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Also referred to as the President's Coronavirus Task Force, it was established on January 29, 2020, with Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar as chair. On February 26, 2020, U.S. vice president Mike Pence was named to chair the task force, and Deborah Birx was named the response coordinator.
Rebecca Katz is a professor and director of the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University Medical Center. She is an expert in global health and international diplomacy, specializing in emerging infectious diseases. From 2004 to 2019, she was a consultant for the United States Department of State on matters related to the Biological Weapons Convention and emerging infectious disease threats. Katz served on the Joe Biden presidential campaign's public health panel to advise on the COVID-19 pandemic.
Rick Arthur Bright is an American immunologist, vaccine researcher, and public health official. He was the director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) from 2016 to 2020. In May 2020, he filed a whistleblower complaint, alleging that the Trump administration ignored his early warnings about the COVID-19 pandemic and illegally retaliated against him by ousting him from his role and demoting him to a position at the National Institutes of Health. On October 6, 2020, Bright resigned from the government. On November 9 he was named a member of President-elect Joe Biden's coronavirus advisory board.
The federal government of the United States initially responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in the country with various declarations of emergency, some of which led to travel and entry restrictions and the formation of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. As the pandemic progressed in the U.S. and globally, the U.S. government began issuing recommendations regarding the response by state and local governments, as well as social distancing measures and workplace hazard controls. State governments play a primary role in adopting policies to address the pandemic. Following the closure of most businesses throughout a number of U.S. states, President Donald Trump announced the mobilization of the National Guard in the most affected areas.
Marcella Nunez-Smith is an American physician-scientist. She is C.N.H Long Professor of medicine and epidemiology at the Yale School of Medicine, where she serves as the inaugural Associate Dean for Health Equity Research and founding director of the Equity Research and Innovation Center. She also holds joint appointments at the Yale School of Public Health and the Yale School of Management. After co-chairing the Biden-Harris transition’s COVID-19 Advisory Board from November 2020 to January 2021, she was selected by President Joe Biden to serve as Senior Advisor to the White House COVID-19 Response Team and Chair of the Presidential COVID-19 Equity Task Force.
The presidential transition of Joe Biden began on November 7, 2020, and ended on January 20, 2021. Unlike previous presidential transitions, which normally take place during the roughly 10-week period between the election in the first week of November and the inauguration on January 20, Biden's presidential transition was shortened somewhat because the General Services Administration under the outgoing Trump administration did not recognize Biden as the "apparent winner" until November 23.
Julie Morita is an American public health expert serving as the executive vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and a member of President Joe Biden's COVID-19 Advisory Board. Prior to her position, she served as Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health.
Loyce Pace is an American public health official expert serving as the Assistant Secretary in the Office of Global Affairs for the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. She was executive director of the Global Health Council and member of President-elect Joe Biden's COVID-19 Advisory Board. Pace specializes in public health policy and global health equity, working to promote equitable access to health care around the world.
Robert M. Rodriguez is an American emergency physician working at the San Francisco General Hospital. He is a professor of emergency medicine at the UCSF School of Medicine and was a member of the COVID-19 Advisory Board of U.S. president Joe Biden.
The White House COVID-19 Response Team was the task force during the presidency of Joe Biden to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. It was set up by Joe Biden on his first day in office – January 20, 2021 – and replaced President Trump's White House Coronavirus Task Force and Joe Biden's transitionary COVID-19 Advisory Board.
