Andy Slavitt Planning to Leave Role on Coronavirus Task Force in June
On May 14, Andy Slavitt, a senior adviser on President Joe Biden’s coronavirus response team, confirmed that he will be leaving his role in June.
In a report published on May 14 by CNBC, Kevin Breuninger wrote that “Slavitt, whose temporary position on Biden’s Covid panel was known to be expiring next month, said that while the administration had achieved many of its goals for the pandemic, more work remains to be done.”
Breuninger quoted Slavitt as telling Blomberg that, “Look, there’s never a perfect time to leave.” “But,” Breuninger wrote, “he said he believes that when he does depart, “things are in really great hands with the people here, that many difficult things have been accomplished.” “There’s much more work to do, but the people here, I couldn’t think of a better set of people to do it than the people that will be here when I’m gone,” Slavitt said in the Bloomberg interview.
Asked what else needs to be done, Slavitt mentioned the “big job” of persuading the remaining bloc of unvaccinated Americans to get their shots, as well as helping other struggling nations’ vaccination efforts. “There will always be things to do, there will always be challenges,” Slavitt said. “Hopefully they will not be as intense for the country’s sake as they’ve been so far.” Slavitt said he will be leaving in “the beginning of June.” Breuninger reported that “The White House did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment for more details. Slavitt was a so-called special government employee, a status that limits his service to 130 days, according to the Department of the Interior.”
Slavitt shared his plans with Bloomberg a day after the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had announced that fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear masks in most situations. And on May 17, Slavitt tweeted, “COVID Update: It appears that cases are down in all 50 states.”
Slavitt’s title on the team has been senior pandemic adviser.
As the New York Times’s Karen Zraick wrote on Feb. 24 in an article outlining the roles of the team members, “Mr. Slavitt, a former health care company executive, served as the acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services from 2015 to 2017. (His company was also involved in fixing the A.C.A. website before that.) Mr. Slavitt was outspoken in his defense of the Affordable Care Act during the Trump administration — and raised the alarm about the pandemic early in 2020. He’s active on Twitter, writes on Medium, and until recently, hosted a podcast about Covid. He has said that he accepted the White House job ‘on a short-term basis.’”
