Within just hours of Joseph R. Biden Jr. taking the oath of office as the 46th President of the United States, the president signed into law by Executive Order measures to get the COVID-19 pandemic under control. The Executive Order (EO) entitled: “Organizing and Mobilizing the United States Government to Provide a Unified and Effective Response to Combat COVID-19 and to Provide United States Leadership on Global Health and Security,” is just one of the 17 EOs President Biden signed during his first day in office.

This EO provides for two immediate actions: the designation of a Coordinator of the COVID-19 Response and Counselor to the President (COVID-19 Response Coordinator) and a policy to prepare the United States to assist and take leadership in the global COVID-19 response.

The COVID-19 Response Coordinator position is located within the Executive Office of the President and reports directly to the president. He or she has the power to advise and assist not just the president, but also any other executive departments and agencies on the COVID-19 coordinated response. The position will harmonize the federal government-wide response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including domestic and global actions. Additionally, the incumbent will have the authority to convene principal officers from relevant agencies to implement these domestic and global responses.

This Executive Order signed on January 20th puts immense responsibilities on the individual who will hold the office, including coordinating the vaccine, testing, and securing any supplies needed; coordinating the reopening of schools, daycare, and childcare, the Head Start program, and other elementary and secondary programs; and synchronizing all state, local, tribal, and territorial efforts as needed.

In addition to creating the COVID-19 Response Coordinator position, the EO also establishes a new initiative to better plan for the future. This initiative is to “identify, monitor, prepare for, and, if necessary, respond to emerging biological and pandemic threats” in the future after COVID-19 is controlled globally. The Obama-era Global Health Security Agenda Interagency Review Council, established in EO 13747 in November 2016, has now been reconvened to help direct efforts to monitor biological threats such as COVID-19 that are currently plaguing the globe, but also to better prepare the country for any emerging or future risks. This is in part a way for President Biden to make a lasting impact on the United States’ response to a future pandemic or biological threat, regardless of who is the president of the time.

President Biden has already appointed Jeffrey Zients to become the COVID-19 Response Coordinator envisioned under the EO. Zients previously served the Obama-Biden administration as the Chief Performance Officer. Many that worked with him in the Obama administration nicknamed him “Mr. Fix-it” for his ability to take dwindling government projects, turn them around, and make them successful. The best-known example of this is his work on revamping the error-ridden launch of Healthcare.gov, a part of then-President Obama’s healthcare initiative the Affordable Care Act.

Critics of the appointment of Zients cite his close ties to the private sector. Throughout his career, Zients has held many senior-level positions within companies including being a board member of Facebook, CEO of a holding company named Cranemere, and also helping launch a Washington bagel shop “Call Your Mother.” Others who disapprove of the appointment say that only an individual with a medical or scientific background would be a better choice to lead the Federal Government’s effort to control the pandemic.

During President Trump’s Administration, Vice President Pence was initially put in charge of the US response to the COVID-19 pandemic, an individual who also has no medical or scientific background. Many saw this pick at the time as a continuation of President Trump’s downplaying of the severity of the virus. However, by the end of the Trump Administration, Dr. Deborah Birx was appointed to serve as the White House coronavirus response coordinator. As a physician and diplomat, she has a history of working in the federal government’s response to global pandemics, serving under the Obama Administration as Global AIDS Coordinator.

Now working as a special advisor in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr. Birx spoke with Face the Nation on January 24, 2021, where she gave her perspective on the Trump administration’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. She noted that the Trump Administration strongly believed in the mantra of “federally supported and state-managed” as a way to disseminate aid.

In a nod to the disorganization of the White House’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic under then-President Trump, Birx stated that back in March there was a “parallel data stream coming into the White House that never made” and that “someone out there or someone inside was creating a parallel set of data and graphics that were shown to the president” to support his policy and reaction to the growing pandemic, rather than presenting the true facts of the virus.

President Biden has taken the opposite approach of tackling the COVID-19 pandemic by signing this Executive Order during his first day in office. He also recently unleashed his plan to administer 100 million vaccines within his first 100 days in office. Zients will be in charge of following through with this promise as the COVID-19 Response Coordinator.