The White House is counting on a retired Army colonel and former Obama appointee to help lead the administration’s response to the coronavirus as the outbreak spreads across the country and claims more lives.
Former colleagues of Dr. Deborah Birx, who recently served as the State Department’s global AIDS coordinator, say President Trump and Vice President Pence have landed on someone with the qualifications to tackle the biggest public health crisis the nation has faced in years.
“She is somebody that knows how to manage the whole of the U.S. government to move it toward a particular goal. If the White House lets her do that, it could be exactly the kind of coordination that has been lacking up to this point,” said Matthew Kavanaugh, who directs Georgetown’s Global Health Policy and Governance Initiative and knows Birx from his years working on global HIV policy. Continue reading.