President Biden announced Thursday that his COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients will leave his position next month. Zients will be replaced by epidemiologist Dr. Ashish Jha, who is dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health.
In a statement first reported by The New York Times on Thursday, Biden said that Zients is “a man of service” and praised his work to “build the infrastructure we needed to deliver vaccines, tests, treatment and masks to hundreds of millions of Americans.”
"Jeff spent the last 14 months working tirelessly to help combat COVID. He is a man of service and an expert manager. I will miss his counsel and I’m grateful for his service," Biden said in the statement.
White House officials told The Times that Jha will “coordinate the government’s COVID-19 response from inside the White House.” In addition to his role at Brown, Jha is “a practicing internist who has urged an aggressive approach to the pandemic in frequent television appearances.”
Zients had committed to working in the White House for a limited time as a coronavirus response coordinator and extended his stay multiple times, officials told The Times. He will leave his role to private life.
Zient’s deputy, Natalie Quillian, will also depart her White House role in April.
“Mr. Zients’s decision comes as the United States is easing out of pandemic crisis mode for now, but is still not out of danger,” The Times noted in its report. “While cases are on a downward trajectory in much of the country, they are rising in parts of Europe and Asia. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the president’s top medical adviser for the pandemic, said in an interview on Wednesday.”
Last month, as Townhall covered, a senior member of Biden’s communications team announced she would depart her role. Mariel Saez, the White House director of broadcast media, left to pursue a job in the private sector.
A report from CNN at the time of Saez’s announcement noted that “several White House officials have told CNN there’s an expectation there will be more departures in the weeks ahead, likely after Biden’s State of the Union address on March 1.”