Biden to announce COVID-19 task force Monday

President-elect Joe Biden on Saturday night said he would announce his COVID-19 task force next week.

“Our work begins with getting COVID under control,” Biden said during a prime-time speech.

“On Monday, I will name a group of leading scientists and experts as transition advisers to help take the Biden-Harris COVID plan and convert it into an action blue print that will start on Jan. 20,” he added.

Earlier in the day, Axios reported that the 12-member group will be co-led by former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner David Kessler and Yale University professor Marcella Nunez-Smith.

Murthy, who was surgeon general from 2014 to 2017, is expected to play a key role in the Biden administration. He has advised Biden for months on the coronavirus pandemic.

Kessler served as FDA commissioner from 1990 to 1997 and is now the board chair at the Centers for Science in the Public Interest.

Other members of the task force were advisers to Biden during the campaign, according to Axios.

The Hill has reached out to the Biden campaign for comment.

During remarks on Friday, a day before news networks projected he would defeat President Trump, Biden said voters have “given us a mandate for action on COVID, the economy, on climate change and systemic racism. They made it clear they want the country to come together not continue to pull apart.”

The U.S. on Thursday set a new record for daily coronavirus cases, topping 118,000 infections. Experts predicted the number of cases will increase in the coming months as colder temperatures push more people inside, where the virus can spread more easily.

More than 9.8 million people in the U.S. have contracted the virus since the pandemic began, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. More than 237,000 have died.

Updated at 8:52 p.m.