Pence Is in Charge of U.S. Virus Response

President Trump announced this week that Vice President Mike Pence would take over the administration's response to the coronavirus, which has now spread to more than 80,000 people around the globe and sparked a dramatic sell-off on Wall Street, reports Bloomberg . Trump initially appointed Health and Human Services Secretary (HHS) Alex Azar to lead the federal government's response. Pence said yesterday at a meeting on the virus at HHS headquarters, "The President has every confidence in the secretary, as I do. The President wanted to make it clear to the American people that we're going to bring a whole-of-government approach to this." Pence has also Deborah Birx, the U.S. State Department's top AIDS official, to join his team. Birx was nominated by former President Obama six years ago as the U.S. global AIDS coordinator responsible for overseeing humanitarian aid programs combating the epidemic. Additionally, she served as head of the global HIV/AIDS division at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Pence and Azar announced earlier Thursday that U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams, Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow, and Treasury Department Secretary Steven Mnuchin would join the coronavirus task force.