Washington DC: US President-elect Joe Biden on Thursday asked the top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci to join his administration and to lead his team of medical advisers to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fauci is a member of the US President Donald Trump administration's Coronavirus Task Force, which is responsible for coordinating efforts to fight the virus.
Biden told CNN in an interview that he met with Fauci earlier and asked him to continue to hold the position of director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and to serve as his Chief Medical Adviser on the coronavirus response team.
Besides this, President-elect Biden also plans to call on Americans to wear masks for his first 100 days in office. "Just 100 days to mask, not forever. 100 days. And I think we'll see a significant reduction" in COVID-19 infections, Biden said.
Under the current US administration, Fauci and Donald Trump's ideas have clashed on several occasions over issues concerning the pandemic.
In October, Fauci told The Washington Post that the US needs to change to make an "abrupt change" in public health practices and behaviours, revealing that the frequency of the COVID task force's meeting has come down.
The US continues to the worst country by the pandemic. According to Johns Hopkins University, there are 14,086,016 COVID-19 cases in the country and 275,550 deaths due to the virus.
(ANI)
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