ATLANTA — President-elect Joe Biden has picked a Harvard infectious disease expert to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, a leading expert on virus testing, prevention, and treatment, is nominated to serve as Director of the CDC.
She has been on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic response in Massachusetts, serving as Chief of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital and a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
As CDC director, Walensky would replace Dr. Robert Redfield, who accurately told the public coronavirus vaccines would not be available for most people until next year, only to be disparaged by Trump as “confused.”
Walensky is a leading infectious disease specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital, and has devoted her career to combatting HIV/AIDS.
Under President Donald Trump, CDC was relegated to a lesser role after agency scientists issued a stark early warning that contradicted Trump’s assurances the virus was under control, rattling financial markets.
Biden also announced other key members of his health team, including California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to be his health secretary and businessman Jeff Zients was named as Biden's White House coronavirus coordinator.
Biden announced Dr. Anthony Fauci will be the president’s chief medical adviser, while continuing as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Adding to the group are national security expert Natalie Quillian as co-director of the coronavirus response and Yale public health specialist Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, who will head a new working group to reduce health disparities in COVID-19, a disease that has taken a deeper toll among minorities.
“This trusted and accomplished team of leaders will bring the highest level of integrity, scientific rigor, and crisis-management experience to one of the toughest challenges America has ever faced — getting the pandemic under control so that the American people can get back to work, back to their lives, and back to their loved ones," Biden said.