You Will Anyway: Biden picks for health services positions

Monday, December 7, 2020

Biden picks for health services positions

Biden said in a statement that he will nominate Xavier Becerra to lead the sprawling Health and Human Services department. Becerra is California's attorney general and has led prominent legal fights against President Trump's efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. Becerra would be the first Latino to lead HHS, the Biden transition team said in a statement.

Biden said he would nominate Dr. Rochelle Walensky as the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Walensky is chief of infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital and a Harvard Medical School professor.

Biden selected Jeff Zients to be the White House coordinator of the coronavirus response, a point person for efforts by agencies and state and local governments on vaccine distribution and supply chain issues. Zients, a veteran of the Obama administration with extensive business ties, is known for having spearheaded the work to fix the healthcare.gov website used to sign up for Obamacare after its disastrous rollout in 2013.

Biden also said he would nominate Dr. Vivek Murthy as Surgeon General. Murthy has been a key coronavirus adviser to Biden, regularly briefing him on the pandemic during his campaign and the transition. Murthy was Surgeon General during the Obama administration.

[...]

Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, director of the Equity Research and Innovation Center at Yale School of Medicine, will lead a new task force aimed at reducing disparities in response, care and treatment for COVID-19.

[...]

On Thursday Biden announced Dr. Anthony Fauci would continue his role as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases while also serving as his chief medical adviser on COVID-19.

NPR

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Life, as Explained in "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead"

GUILDENSTERN: What a fine persecution---to be kept intrigued without ever quite being enlightened.

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ROSENCRANTZ : The only thing that makes it bearable is the irrational belief that somebody interesting will come on in a minute.

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GUILDENSTERN: But for God's sake what are we supposed to do?!

PLAYER: Relax. Respond. That's what people do. You can't go through life questioning your situation at every turn.

GUILDENSTERN: But we don't know what's going on, or what to do with ourselves. We don't know how to act.

PLAYER: Act natural. You know why you're here at least.

GUILDENSTERN: We only know what we're told, and that's little enough. And for all we know it isn't even true.

PLAYER: For all anyone knows, nothing is. Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that which is taken to be true. It's the currency of living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn't make any difference so long as it is honoured. One acts on assumptions.

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GUILDENSTERN : We act on scraps of information... sifting half-remembered directions that we can hardly separate from instinct.

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PLAYER: Life is a gamble, at terrible odds-if it was a bet you wouldn't take it.