Indian-origin Murthy to lead US Covid task force as cases cross 10 mn

He was also the 19th Surgeon General of US under Obama

As the covid tally of the United States nears the 10 million mark, President-elect Joe Biden has set up a Covid task force to be led by Indian origin physician Vivek Murthy. 

Murthy was also the 19th Surgeon General of the United States during Barack Obama’s presidency. The US is the worst affected country in the world both in terms of Covid cases as well as deaths. 

Murthy, 43 was born in England to his immigrant parents from Karnataka who moved to Florida a few years after his birth. A Harvard University graduate, Murthy went on to pursue MD and MBA from Yale University. 

After completing his internal medicine residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Murthy later joined the Harvard Medical School as faculty in internal medicine. 

He recently said in a tweet, “As the fall #COVID19 surge grows, it's difficult to escape the fact that much of this was preventable. We can still avoid more tragedy. But it will require our government to finally step up and mount the response that Covid-19 has always demanded.” 

Murthy has also spoken against the politicisation of of Covid vaccine by the Trump administration and said that the process for evaluating safety and efficacy of vaccine and treatment has to be based on science not politics. He said in a tweet, “ People want vaccine approval determined by scientists not politicians. There is one path to a safe, effective #COVID19 vaccine: let scientists do their job.”

Biden’s covid task force will also be co-led by former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David Kessler and Yale University professor Marcella Nunez-Smith, according to reports.