Trump COVID-19 Whistleblower Rick Bright Joins Biden’s COVID-19 Task Force

Former Trump administration whistleblower Rick Bright, who resigned after his allegations of early warnings over the pandemic were ignored, is now part of President-elect Joe Biden' COVID-19 advisory board.

Biden unveiled the members of his COVID-19 advisory board on Monday.

A group of health experts mans the task force as the majority of them are doctors who will be offering guidance to the President-elect, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, and their COVID-19 staff as the two officials are preparing to take over their responsibilities.

The composition of the board that Biden picked could be an indicator that his administration will intend to follow a more science-based approach against the global health threat.

On his transition website, Biden shared in a statement that dealing with the global health crisis caused by COVID-19 will be one of the most important battles that his administration will be facing that is why he formed the group to get information from experts in the field of health and science, USA Today reported.

He also added that the advisory board would aid him and shape his approach in managing the surge in reported infections, protecting at-risk populations, and ensuring vaccines that are safe, effective, and distributed efficiently, freely, and equitably.

According to Fox News, due to Bright's criticisms regarding the Trump administration's pandemic response, he was demoted from his role as the director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.

However, Bright was the one who resigned from the agency as he filed a lengthy whistleblower complaint with claims that he tried to raise internal concerns regarding the handling of the outbreak by the administration.

This included the championing of President Donald Trump of hydroxychloroquine, a drug for malaria to be the coronavirus treatment despite no clinical tests done to verify its efficacy on the virus.

The announcement made by Biden regarding the task force was the first major transition move he made as Vice President Mike Pence will be leading a separate White House coronavirus task force meeting scheduled on Monday.

The pandemic now has claimed not less than 230,000 American lives, and the Trump administration has not imposed any nationwide lockdown or test-and-trace strategy, which leaves the state officials to be the ones to figure out how to keep the virus at bay.

Biden's task force is composed of 13 members, chaired by former surgeon general Vivek Murthy, former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, David Kessler, and Yale University professor Marcella Nunez-Smith, Politico reported.

Other members of the group include physician and public health expert Luciana Borio, who is also the previous director for medical and biodefense preparedness on the National Security Council of Trump.

Hopes for an effective COVID-19 vaccine were raised Monday after a vaccine developed by Pfizer and partner BioNTech proved better than expected at protecting people from the virus based on the study.

According to the companies, the vaccine proved more than 90 percent effective in the first 94 subjects infected by the new coronavirus, and at least one developed symptom, but the results are not yet complete.