January 13, 2021

Warren Identifies Key Priorities for the Incoming Biden-Harris Administration's Response to the COVID-19 Public Health Crisis

In 15-page memo, Senator Warren details her extensive oversight work and provides recommendations for executive actions that the incoming administration can take to respond quickly and effectively to the public health crisis

"The Trump administration's failed COVID-19 response has resulted in an ongoing national tragedy, with over 375,000 Americans killed by the disease, millions more seriously ill, and the economy in shambles. You must act quickly to turn the federal government's response around and end this public health emergency."

Memorandum (PDF)

Washington, D.C. - United States Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, sent a 15-page memorandum to incoming COVID-19 Coordinator Jeff Zients and the Biden-Harris transition team's COVID-19 Advisory Board Co-Chairs Dr. Vivek Murthy, Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, and Dr. David Kessler, describing the findings from Senator Warren's extensive oversight of the Trump Administration's public health failures and identifying four key priorities for President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris to address as soon as they take office. 

"Your work is critical: the myriad failures of the Trump administration's response to the pandemic have resulted in an ongoing public health tragedy that grows worse daily in the absence of federal leadership," Senator Warren said. "You have much work to do, and I am looking forward to working with you and I have full confidence in your team to protect public health, end the pandemic, and restore the economy."

The four priorities as outlined in the memo are:

I.  Improve transparency and oversight of pandemic response efforts to address questions about corporate profiteering and conflicts of interest, which have damaged the integrity of key administration efforts and reduced public confidence in the federal government's response;

II.  Address the pandemic's disproportionate impact on vulnerable populations, especially communities of color and individuals living and working in nursing homes, assisted living facilities, prisons, behavioral health facilities, and other congregate settings;

III.  Rectify supply chain challenges that have hamstrung the nation's ability to control and mitigate the spread of the pandemic; and

IV.  Restore integrity to politicized pandemic response efforts that have sidelined public health scientists and hampered the nation's pandemic recovery.

"The Trump administration's failed COVID-19 response has resulted in an ongoing national tragedy, with over 375,000 Americans killed by the disease, millions more seriously ill, and the economy in shambles. You must act quickly to turn the federal government's response around and end this public health emergency. I look forward to working with you to do so, and I hope that these recommendations based on my oversight work over the last year assist your response," the Senator concluded.

The Senator provides 13 recommendations for executive actions the incoming administration can take within days or weeks of the inauguration to address the four priorities outlined. 

  1. Establish and enforce strong conflict of interest policies for all administration officials.
  2. Make COVID-19 contracts public and complete a thorough review of existing contracts to identify agreements that (1) have excluded common taxpayer protections from their terms and (2) appear to provide undue benefits to well-connected companies.
  3. Use existing compulsory licensing and march-in authorities for vaccines and treatments.
  4. Release FDA data and improve Emergency Use Authorization tracking and communication to providers and the public.
  5. Overhaul and facilitate oversight of the COVID-19 response.
  6. Improve demographic data collection and public reporting at CDC, CMS and other  agencies responding to the pandemic.
  7. Improve data collection and public reporting & allocate resources to individuals in congregate facilities, including assisted living facilities, behavioral health facilities, and prisons.
  8. Fully utilize the Defense Production Act.
  9. Invest in domestic drug manufacturers through BARDA.
  10. Build public manufacturing capacity to develop essential drugs and COVID-19 materials.
  11. Empower HHS, NIH, FDA, and CDC leadership to run their agencies without political interference.
  12. Pursue apolitical public health communications campaigns through CDC.
  13. Use CDC's full legal authority to implement public health measures.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Senator Warren has been fighting to ensure that workers on the front lines of this pandemic have the resources they need and that racial and ethinic disparities in testing and treatment are made public and addressed. She foresaw the risks and, as early as 2017, pushed the Trump Administration to put resources and programs in place to respond to a pandemic. She has proposed a series of plans to get us through this crisis, including plans to rapidly expand diagnostic testing and to greatly scale up federal resources for workers, hospitals, small businesses, and state and local governments, so that they can weather this crisis and to stabilize our economy. A detailed timeline of her COVID-19-related oversight and legislative actions can be found here. 

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