Slavitt – COOPER GENERAL NEWS

Andy Slavitt

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Andy Slavitt, a senior advisor to President Joe Biden’s coronavirus response team, confirmed on Friday that he will be leaving his role in early June.

Slavitt, whose temporary position on Biden’s Covid panel is known to expire next month, said that while the government had achieved many of its goals for the pandemic, there was more work to be done.

“Look, there’s never a perfect time to leave,” Slavitt said in a Bloomberg interview. But he said he believes that if he retires from the role, “things are in really good hands with the people here, that many difficult things have been accomplished”.

“There’s a lot more to do, but the people here, I couldn’t think of a better group than the people who will be here when I’m gone,” he said.

When asked what still needs to be done, Slavitt mentioned the “great job” of convincing the remaining block of unvaccinated Americans to get their shots and helping other struggling nations to vaccinate.

“There will always be things to do, there will always be challenges,” said Slavitt. “Hopefully, for the sake of the country, they won’t be as intense as before.”

Slavitt said he would be leaving sometime “early June”. The White House did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment for further details on Slavitt’s exit. Slavitt was a so-called special government employee, a status that, according to the U.S. Department of the Interior, limited his service to 130 days.

Slavitt discussed his upcoming departure the day after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that fully vaccinated people would no longer need to wear face masks in most situations.

The shift in guidelines meant a significant relaxation of the social distancing recommendations that were in place in one form or another during most of the pandemic. Biden and other government officials hailed the update, which coincided with the US reaching 250 million vaccinations, as a turning point in the United States’ fight against the virus.

Andy Slavitt, White House Senior Advisor on Covid Response, predicted a growing number of Americans will continue to take the Covid vaccine based on news and evidence from trusted sources.

“In Israel, where they are a little ahead of us, 89% of seniors have chosen the vaccine,” Slavitt said. “We believe we can achieve these numbers if we continue to reliably answer people’s questions because these are very good, safe and effective vaccines.”

Around 37% of people in the US over the age of 65 have been fully vaccinated, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the last week alone, the states fired around 17 million shots.

To further facilitate the distribution of vaccines, the Biden government announced that it will launch a nationwide vaccine availability website that will act as a link between the numerous vaccine registration websites from states, pharmacies, and other companies.

Slavitt told CNBC’s The News with Shepard Smith that “the idea would be if you put in your zip code it would show you on a map all the places near you that claim to have vaccines.” He added that streamlining the process would not only reduce widespread frustration, but also reduce vaccine hesitation.

Host Shepard Smith pressed Slavitt on his comments on vaccination records. Speaking at a press conference at the White House Monday, Slavitt said vaccination records should be free, private and secure. However, it is “not the job of the government to save this data and do so”.

Slavitt said Tuesday night that a government-run vaccination record campaign could lead some Americans to believe that the government is too involved in collecting data required for a vaccination record. This resistance is counterproductive for the entire vaccination effort.

“We believe that the public is more reluctant to get vaccinated if they feel like the government. The federal government is too big a role in this,” Slavitt said.