White House announces new additions to coronavirus task force

Five individuals have been added to the White House coronavirus task force, the Office of the Vice President announced Friday, a little over a week after the Trump administration reversed course on the group’s future, saying it would continue “indefinitely.”

The new members include Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, Labor Secretary Gene Scalia, National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins, Food and Drug Administration Director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research Dr. Peter Marks and Administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration Thomas Engels.

Some of the new task force members, such as Perdue, had been fairly regular participants in task force meetings despite not previously being official members.

Earlier this month, the White House considered phasing out the task force around Memorial Day. But Trump quickly changed his mind, telling reporters that it would continue “indefinitely.”

“I thought we could wind it down sooner. But I had no idea how popular the task force is until, actually, yesterday when I started talking about winding it down,” Trump said in the Oval Office on May 6. “I get calls from very respected people saying, ‘I think it would be better to keep it going, it’s done such a good job.'”

The President also said at the time that the task force would adopt a new focus on vaccines.

However, at least two additions — Perdue and Scalia — indicate that the task force’s future focus will be broader than just vaccine development.

The task force was, at the start of the pandemic, a public-facing panel of health and agency officials, holding press briefings nearly every day and appearing in frequent national television interviews.

But this month, as the White House has prioritized its economic message, health officials on the panel have been less visible, appearing in fewer national TV interviews. And in at least one instance, one medical expert on the task force member was barred from testifying before Congress.

After barring Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, from testifying before the House, the White House instituted a policy barring task force officials from appearing before Congress without the approval of Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows. When Fauci testified in the Senate earlier this week, the President was critical of some of the infectious disease expert’s responses.

One of the new additions to the task force — Collins from the NIH — is Fauci’s supervisor.

On Friday, the White House also announced its leadership for what it calls “Operation Warp Speed” — the administration’s effort to develop a coronavirus vaccine by the end of the year.

Trump named Moncef Slaoui, the ex-head of GlaxoSmithKline’s vaccines division, to lead the effort alongside four-star Army General Gustave Perna.