President-elect Joe Biden is formally announcing his pick for health secretary and other key health positions after releasing their names on Monday.
Watch their introductions live. Coverage is expected to begin around 11:40 a.m. Arizona time.
On Monday, Biden announced his choice of California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to be his health secretary, putting a defender of the Affordable Care Act in a leading role to oversee his administration's coronavirus response.
Separately, Biden picked a Harvard infectious disease expert, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And he announced a new advisory role for Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert.
Businessman Jeff Zients was named as Biden's White House coronavirus coordinator. An economic adviser to former President Barack Obama, Zients also led the rescue of the HealthCare.gov website after its disastrous launch in 2013. Former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, a co-chair of Biden’s coronavirus task force, is returning to his post as the nation's doctor, with broader responsibilities.
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.
Biden still has not picked heads for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.