Well being and Human Providers Secretary, Alex Azar on the White Home on August 23, 2020 in Washington, DC.Pete Marovich | Getty PicturesWell being
Well being and Human Providers Secretary, Alex Azar on the White Home on August 23, 2020 in Washington, DC.
Pete Marovich | Getty Pictures
Well being and Human Providers Secretary Alex Azar is resigning on Jan 20, the identical day President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in.
In his resignation letter dated Jan. 12, Azar took a parting shot at President Donald Trump, mentioning the riot on the U.S. Capitol final week, the place a violent mob of Trump’s supporters breached the constructing, injuring dozens of law enforcement officials and inflicting 5 deaths.
Azar wrote that “the actions and rhetoric following the election, particularly in the course of the previous week, threaten to tarnish” the legacies of this administration. “The assaults on the Capitol have been an assault on our democracy and on the custom of peaceable transitions of energy that the USA first delivered to the world.”
Azar’s resignation got here after U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and a number of other different Trump administration officers resigned after the president was accused of inciting the violence by directing protesters to go to the U.S. Capitol the place lawmakers have been finalizing Biden’s win. The mob descended on the Capitol constructing Wednesday shortly after proceedings started to depend the Electoral School votes and make sure Biden’s election.
“With the pandemic raging, the continued must ship vaccines and therapeutics to the American individuals, and the crucial of guaranteeing a easy transition to the Biden Administration, I’ve decided that it’s in one of the best curiosity of the individuals we serve to stay as Secretary till the tip of the time period,” Azar mentioned in his letter addressed to Trump.
“I Implore you to proceed to sentence unequivocally any type of violence, to demand that nobody try to disrupt the inaugural actions in Washington or elsewhere and to proceed to assist unreservedly the peaceable and orderly transition of energy on January 20, 2021.”
In a tweet final week, Azar condemned the riot, saying he was “disgusted.”
“Bodily violence and the desecration of this hallowed image of our democracy should finish. Folks should instantly and peacefully disperse,” he mentioned on Twitter.
Trump chosen Azar, a former pharmaceutical govt, to go the U.S. company in late 2017, changing Trump’s first HHS chief, Dr. Tom Value. His division is answerable for overseeing the sprawling Medicare and Medicaid applications in addition to U.S. public well being, medical analysis and the protection of meals and medicines. He is been an integral determine within the administration’s Covid-19 response.
Previous to his function, Azar served because the division’s basic counsel from 2001 to 2005 and deputy secretary from 2005 to 2007. From 2012 to 2017, he was president of Lilly USA, the American arm of drug big Eli Lilly.
Azar’s resignation comes amid a once-in-a-century pandemic. The U.S. at the moment has greater than 23.33 million coronavirus instances and has recorded probably the most virus deaths by a large margin, with greater than 389,000 confirmed fatalities thus far, in line with information compiled by Johns Hopkins College.
Federal and state officers are racing to distribute vaccines to stop Covid-19 and convey an finish to the pandemic.
Azar highlighted his efforts to guide his division throughout what he described as an “unprecedented pandemic.”
“Drawing on my management of pandemic flu preparedness efforts throughout my earlier tenure at HHS and subsequent expertise within the non-public sector, we created a historic partnership with the Division of Protection, our scientists, and the pharmaceutical trade to carry therapeutics and vaccines to the American individuals in document time,” Azar wrote. “Operation Warp Velocity achieved in 9 months what many doubted could be potential in a yr and a half or extra. As of this date, we now have two secure and efficient vaccines being administered to thousands and thousands of People, with extra vaccines prone to be approved shortly. We have now two secure and efficient therapeutics that may assist maintain the weak out of our hospitals, with extra therapies on the way in which … Whereas we mourn each misplaced life, our early, aggressive, and complete efforts saved tons of of 1000’s and even thousands and thousands of American lives.”
President-elect Joe Biden plans to make use of FEMA and the Nationwide Guard to construct coronavirus vaccine clinics throughout the USA, in line with new particulars of his Covid-19 vaccination plan launched by his transition workforce on Friday.
Learn Azar’s full resignation letter beneath:
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