Moncef Slaoui, Operation Warp Speed’s chief adviser, resigned on Wednesday as part of a plan to turn the vaccination effort over to President-elect Biden’s coronavirus team.
Slaoui’s resignation, which will take effect next month, according to CNBC, is because the president-elect has yet to appoint a new chief scientific advisor to the federal government’s vaccination program, which so far has yielded just over 9 million Americans the first. dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
Representatives of Biden’s transition team did not immediately return a request for comment from The Hill.
The president-elect has appointed Jeffrey Zients as director and former Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to oversee his response to COVID-19, while Bechara Chouchair, Kaiser Permanente’s chief health officer, is Biden’s vaccine coordinator.
Slaoui previously said he would stop broadcasting once two COVID-19 vaccines hit the market, a milestone reached last month. He told Politico last week that he had extended his plans to stay on until the Biden team no longer needed his help.
“I’ve decided to expand that to make sure the operation continues to perform as it did during the transition from the administration,” Slaoui told the news outlet.
An official on Biden’s transition team also told Politico that Slaoui would stay on temporarily “to ensure continuity of work that has already been done and to ensure a smooth process.”
General Gustave Perna told the news outlet during the same conversation that Biden’s team has not asked him to step down from overseeing the national vaccine distribution efforts.
“I’ve signed up, I’m here until my part of the mission is over, or else I’ve been told,” he said.