https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/05/us/politics/gayle-smith-covid-vaccine.html

Gayle Smith, who helped lead the U.S. response to Ebola, will run Biden’s vaccine diplomacy.

April 5, 2021

“This pandemic won’t end at home until it ends worldwide. And I want to spend a minute on this because it’s critical to understand, even if we vaccinate all 332 million people in the United States tomorrow, we would still not be fully safe from the virus. Not while it’s still replicating around the world, and turning into new variants that could easily come here and spread across our communities again. And not if we want to fully reopen our economy or start traveling again. Plus, if other countries’ economies aren’t rebounding because they’re still afflicted with Covid, that’ll hurt our recovery too. The world has to come together.” “Our challenges now are two: First, to shorten the lifespan of a borderless pandemic that is destroying lives and livelihoods all over the world. And the second is to ensure that we can prevent, detect and respond to those future global health threats we know are coming. American leadership is desperately needed, and I’m extremely confident we can rise to the occasion. I’m honored to be here. And thank you, very, very much.”