CDC Director Rochelle Walensky using today's WH COVID briefing to deliver a more urgent and emotional call for Americans not to let guard down on pandemic.
She said she was tossing her script to plead with Americans to "just hold on a little while longer"
Just yesterday @POTUS also expressed concern that "people are letting their guard down."
"We really need to hold on to the public health measures" as more people get vaccinated, Fauci says, calling this "a race between the vaccine and what's going on with the dynamics of the outbreak. And we can win this by just hanging there a bit longer."
Many states are opening up “at a level we wouldn’t recommend,” Walensky says when asked why cases are rising again. Says she’ll discuss with governors tomorrow.
Fauci says opening up completely would be “premature.”
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Some of the Day One Biden campaign comms team announced today as part of WH press office. Includes @meghan_hays9 as Director of Message Planning, @KateBerner as dep comms director, @RemiMYamamoto as comms advisor for @RonaldKlain
Others announced today:
-Megan Apper, Director of Research
-Rosemary Boeglin, Assistant Press Secretary
-Amanda Finney, Chief of Staff for the Press Office
-Mike Gwin, Director of Rapid Response
-Paige Hill, Senior Regional Communications Director
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-Michael Kikukawa, Press Assistant
-Jennifer Molina, Senior Director of Coalitions Media
-Kevin Munoz, Assistant Press Secretary
-Vedant Patel, Assistant Press Secretary
-Angela Dela Cruz Perez, Press Assistant
-Emma Riley, Chief of Staff for the Office of Communications
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"We're in the teeth of this crisis right now, and we need presidential leadership right now," @JoeBiden says after noting the higher daily death counts
Biden says some of his picks "are familiar faces. Some are new in their roles. All are facing new circumstances and challenges. That's a good thing."
Biden: "They bring deep experience and bold new thinking. Above all, they know how government should and can work for all Americans."
NEW: @JoeBiden's transition chiefs tell NBC News how they've prepared for this moment, and how they aim for a quick start to building out the Biden/Harris Administration nbcnews.com/politics/2020-…
Biden's transition team has already identified 4,300+ prospective appointees for the 4,000 federal jobs it must ultimately fill, putting a premium on those with responsibility for tackling the Covid-19 pandemic, and others that don’t require Senate confirmation
100 transition staff (and growing) will first begin reaching out to dozens of individuals already IDd as potential hires to begin taking working as part of “agency review teams” to take stock of what needs to be done agency-by-agency
.@WhipClyburn, who helped launch @JoeBiden to the presidency, tells me he is not looking for an administration role. “My plan is to stay right in the Congress." But pressed, he said: "I would never say never" if Biden asked him to play a role
Clyburn says he wants Biden to focus on the pandemic, infrastructure, health care -- and also to create a commission "to fix what was wrong with the 1986, 1988 and 1994 crime bills."
Clyburn also said he expects @KamalaHarris to be given a very substantive role - and he wants to see @CedricRichmond in the West Wing, not the Cabinet.