Coronavirus Czar is Jeffrey Zients. He is leading Biden's task force on tackling this virus. I wonder if he even knows about Vascepa or if someone has shared initial findings with him on Vascepa. Hopefully Dr. Bhatt or someone has reached out to him.
Article from the WSJ
WASHINGTON—A crisis awaits Jeffrey Zients.
By the time he starts as President-elect Joe Biden’s coronavirus czar, an estimated 400,000 people in the U.S. could be dead from the pandemic. Millions of vaccine doses will need to be administered by states, and the nation will remain split over the best way to confront the virus.
Mr. Zients, an investor and former Obama administration economic adviser, has tackled health-related organizational challenges before. He is credited with turning around the bungled rollout of the Affordable Care Act’s HealthCare.gov website in 2013.
“Like now, it was a very high stakes situation with an uncertain outcome,” said Denis McDonough, the White House chief of staff during the Obama administration’s second term who is now Mr. Biden’s pick for veterans affairs secretary.
U.S. Health-Care Workers Receive First Doses of the Covid-19 Vaccine
On Monday, over 50 hospitals and health departments across the country received the newly authorized Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech. Health-care workers were among the first to be vaccinated in the U.S. Photo: UPMC
The pandemic’s scale means the challenge now is bigger. And while he draws praise from officials who worked with him during the Obama years, his selection has been criticized by some progressive Democrats leery of his business background: He is on leave from his job as chief executive of investment firm Cranemere and served on the board of Facebook Inc.
Jeff Hauser of the liberal Revolving Door Project, which scrutinizes executive-branch appointments, derided Mr. Zients as friendly to corporations and raised concerns about his previous work in the health-care industry. Mr. Zients served as chief executive of the Advisory Board Company, a health-care consulting and research firm.
“Our worries in this specific job are that he is not only comfortable with the financialization of American health care, he has hastened it,” Mr. Hauser said. “And we think that the person who runs the Covid-19 response is going to be shaping public policy in some very consequential ways as to how the government interacts with health-care providers.”
Mr. Zients also lacks public-health experience, raising concerns among some in Congress, though his position won’t require Senate confirmation.
“If you had that public health background, then you’re able to prioritize competing priorities—which is more important or not—because you know from a public health background which one’s a linchpin and which one can wait,” said Louisiana GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician.
Mr. Zients declined to comment, according to a spokesman with the Biden transition team. Supporters say critics should look at his success stabilizing HealthCare.gov as evidence he can make strides in corralling the pandemic.
Frustration ran high in October 2013 when the online platform to sign up for individual health insurance under the ACA tried to launch. By most accounts, it was a mess. The website crashed after just two hours, and later could only handle about 35,000 visitors at any one time.
Less than two weeks after the troubled start, Mr. McDonough took Mr. Zients for a walk on the White House South Lawn. He had known Mr. Zients, who had been acting director of the Office of Management and Budget in 2010 and 2013, and coaxed him to lead a mission aimed at fixing HealthCare.gov.
Mr. Zients had no experience in the technology industry, having worked primarily in management consulting before joining government. But, as will be the case when he takes his new job in January, there was a need to act quickly. Scores of people were unable to create an application on HealthCare.gov, and there was a narrow window for them to sign up. The federal government had spent more than $80 million, and additional costs were adding up.
First, Mr. Zients marshaled private companies and technology firms to undertake a rapid review of HealthCare.gov’s problems, drafting a punch list of fixes to prioritize. The quick action didn’t surprise people who had worked with him before.
“He’s not a ditherer,” said Richard Cordray, the first director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from 2012 to 2017.
Mr. Zients publicly committed to operations working smoothly by late November and made the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversaw the ACA implementation, accountable by holding regular press briefings, said Andy Slavitt, who served as the agency’s acting administrator during the Obama administration.
“He organized the briefings with slides and materials every week, with all the data,” said Mr. Slavitt.
A similar public-information effort will be needed when Mr. Biden takes office to reassure people about the vaccine’s safety and provide updates on initiatives to slow the virus’ spread, health leaders say. The current White House coronavirus task force has been largely sidelined and no longer provides regular press briefings.
When he was focused on HealthCare.gov, Mr. Zients realized many contractors were working on different parts of the platform rather than working together. He selected a single general contractor, QSSI, a division of UnitedHealthGroup, even though the decision risked the ire of other vendors.
Similarly, the coronavirus response will need a clear command structure, public-health leaders say, to make sure federal agencies are working in concert with each other and states.
Mr. Biden has called for broad changes to the federal response to the coronavirus and pressed people to commit to wearing a mask for 100 days. He has said he would back a mask mandate on federally owned property, widen free testing and put public-health scientists in the forefront. He wants 10 mobile testing sites and drive-through facilities in each state and has said he would deploy military resources to boost health-care capacity.
Mr. Zients, 54 years old, will have to implement the initiatives and get up to speed with what the Trump administration has already put in place.
“These are hard issues,” said Dr. Tom Frieden, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He said the challenges existed in part because the Trump administration had left states shouldering much of the response rather than taking a more muscular federal approach.
Mr. Zients will need to understand an enhanced tracking system for personal-protective equipment to hospitals and nursing homes, allocation of Covid-19 therapeutics, domestic production of supplies such as gloves and masks compared with demand, and the current state of contact-tracing systems set up by states and what role the federal government should play.
“I think what folks across the political spectrum need to understand is the reason why he’d be good at this job—and I presume the reason why he’s been chosen—is that he’s a superb manager, who now after eight years in the Obama administration understands the levers of government as well as anybody,” said Josh Bolten, president and CEO of Business Roundtable and former chief of staff to President George W. Bush.
Mr. Zients is a father of four children who lives in Washington, D.C. He lifts weights and enjoys a good bagel; he is a co-owner of Call Your Mother, a popular deli.
He notched successes during his tenure fixing HealthCare.gov. By late November, about 90% of people who visited HealthCare.gov to make an application were able to do so. He invited Obama staff going back eight years to a party at a northern Virginia theater to thank everyone for their hard work.
