Joe Biden is planning on Monday to name a 12-member coronavirus task force to start working early on ways to contain the spiraling spread of COVID-19, according to sources close to the former vice president.
The plans signal Biden's intent to address the disease as his immediate priority for both his transition into the White House and then his administration, reports Axios, who listed Biden's plans before most national outlets announced the former vice president had clinched the election Saturday.
Three top experts will co-chair the task force, and members of the upcoming group have advised Biden through the campaign. The leaders will be former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David Kessler, and Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith from Yale University.
Biden has been advised on public policy challenges and on how to adopt health protocols for his campaign, including on preventing the spread of the potentially deadly virus in Biden's inner circle.
During his address Friday night, Biden said voters gave his campaign "a mandate for action on COVID, the economy, climate change, and systemic racism.
According to the latest reports, the United States has suffered 236,000 deaths from COVID-19 and has set new case number rates in the past month.
However, it will be challenging for Biden to implement some of the plans he has to fight the virus, considering that he'll likely face a Republican-controlled Senate who may not support his calls for a greater federal role in contact tracing and testing, said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, told The Washington Post.
Meanwhile, projects from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington say the worst part of the pandemic could hit in mid-to-late January, around the time Biden would be sworn in.
Biden has said he will urge mask mandates, create a panel to scale up testing, and outline detailed plans for distributing vaccines to the entire nation.