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WASHINGTON – President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team has been briefed on the U.S. response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told reporters on Tuesday.
Azar said that on Monday evening, Rear Admiral Erica Schwartz, head of transition planning, briefed Biden’s team on Operation Warp Speed, which aims to provide a coronavirus vaccine to the public in a timely manner record.
“We are immediately receiving all the pre-prepared briefing materials on the transition to them,” Azar said.
“We will ensure coordinated briefings with them to ensure they get all the information they feel they need,” Azar said, adding that “the planning and execution of the transition will be professional, cooperative and collaborative”.
Biden’s transition team did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
The move ends weeks of delays in the official transfer of power from President Donald Trump to the Biden administration following the US presidential election. Trump did not concede the election to Biden.
The United States is grappling with a dramatic resurgence in coronavirus cases as the summer holidays approach. So far, the country has recorded at least 257,991 deaths linked to Covid-19, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
The Trump administration has been criticized for not doing enough to control the spread of the deadly disease.
Last week, Pfizer and its partner BioNTech applied for emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration for their Covid-19 vaccine. The FDA process is expected to take a few weeks, and an advisory committee meeting to review the vaccine is scheduled for early December.
Pfizer announced on July 22 that the United States had agreed to purchase 100 million doses of its vaccine for a maximum of $ 1.95 billion. The deal, which is part of Operation Warp Speed, allows the United States to acquire an additional 500 million doses of vaccine.
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