Biden chooses former FDA commissioner Kessler to head nation s vaccine effort
Laurie McGinley and Amy Goldstein, The Washington Post
Jan. 15, 2021
FacebookTwitterEmail
President-elect Joe Biden during a covid-19 briefing in October by health advisers Celine Gounder, David Kessler, Marcella Nunez-Smith and Vivek Murthy.Washington Post photo by Demetrius Freeman
President-elect Joe Biden has selected David Kessler, a close adviser on the covid-19 crisis, to lead the next administration s efforts to accelerate the manufacture, distribution and administration of coronavirus vaccines, the Biden transition team announced Friday morning.
His appointment comes at a pivotal moment - as the president-elect has begun spelling out plans to speed up the Trump administration s sluggish effort on vaccinations to protect against covid-19, the disease caused by the deadly virus. Biden, in a speech Thursday night, said he would ask Congress for $20 billion - part of a larger package targeting t
David Kessler has co-led Biden’s COVID-19 advisory board.
(Denis Paquin | AP file photo) Then-Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Administrator David Kessler testifying on Capitol Hill in Washington on Nov. 15, 1995. On Friday, President-elect Joe Biden named Kessler to help lead Operation Warp Speed.
| Jan. 15, 2021, 2:46 p.m.
President-elect Joe Biden on Friday named Dr. David Kessler, who was once an aide to former Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, to help lead Operation Warp Speed, the program to accelerate development and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and treatments.
Kessler, who is both a pediatrician and a lawyer and is former chief of the Food and Drug Administration, has been serving Biden as co-chair of his transition’s COVID-19 Advisory Board.
When Israel began to vaccinate its citizens against Covid-19 in December, the Ministry of Health set aside doses for incarcerated people 60 and above, in line with its national guidelines prioritising the age group. They are still sitting in freezers. The minister in charge of Israel s prison services is refusing to allocate coronavirus vaccines to inmates, said epidemiologist Hagai Levine, who before resigning last week over issues with the government s pandemic response was a member of the country s coronavirus task force.
Stuff
Prisons have been Covid-19 hotspots worldwide. While other examples are not always so stark, the situation in Israel mirrors a tendency around the world. Prisoners, given the challenges to social distancing, are especially at risk of contracting the coronavirus. But many countries have not prioritised their inoculation.
On Thursday, public health officials asked healthcare practitioners across the country to take advantage of the plentiful supply of these monoclonal antibodies that are currently the only approved treatment that could keep Americans out of hospitals and slash.
Prealize Health to Host Virtual Event on How Payers and Providers Can Prepare for Escalating Health Risks in 2021
Panel discussion follows Prealize s 2021 State of Health Market Report on the top conditions to watch due to COVID-19 care deferrals
News provided by
Share this article
Share this article
PALO ALTO, Calif., Jan. 14, 2021 /PRNewswire/ Prealize Health, an artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled predictive analytics company, today announced it will host a virtual event on how payers and providers can manage health risk this year. Prealize will be joined by healthcare leaders and physicians to discuss results of a recent analysis that identified the top diagnoses that will increase in 2021 due to COVID-19-related care deferrals, detailed in the recently published