Biden COVID coordinators leaving in April, Jha to take over

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden's COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients and his deputy Natalie Quillian are leaving the administration next month, the White House announced Thursday. They will be replaced by Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.

Zients, an experienced manager and government executive, was brought on by Biden before he took office to devise and execute a “wartime” federal government response to the coronavirus pandemic, including shoring up supply and distribution of vaccines, therapeutics and tests. His departure comes as the White House is shifting its posture from one of confronting an emergency to nudging Americans back to normalcy as the nation learns to live with a less-severe virus that is likely to remain endemic.

The latest national COVID-19 strategy, released by Zients and his team earlier this month, outlined a strategy to allow people to resume their usual activities safely after two years of pandemic disruptions.

Biden, in a statement, praised Zients and his team for “stunning" and “consequential” progress against the coronavirus pandemic.

“When Jeff took this job, less than 1% of Americans were fully vaccinated; fewer than half our schools were open; and unlike much of the developed world, America lacked any at-home COVID tests,” Biden said. “Today, almost 80% of adults are fully vaccinated; over 100 million are boosted; virtually every school is open; and hundreds of millions of at-home tests are distributed every month."

Biden noted that the U.S. is leading the global effort to fight COVID, "delivering more free vaccines to other countries than every other nation.”

The selection of Jha comes as the Biden administration has come under criticism for confusing public messaging around the virus as many...