# White House Coronavirus Task Force

The White House Coronavirus Task Force was a United States Department of State task force, established on January 29, 2020, that is focused on the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

## Quotes

* We do need to acknowledge that we are in a very serious situation we see an increase in [COVID-19] cases
** Alex Azar, member of the United States Coronavirus taskforce on October 22,2020 (video)
* The data speak for themselves - we had a superspreader event in the White House, and it was in a situation where people were crowded together and were not wearing masks
** Dr Tony Fauci (a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force) according to White House hosted Covid 'superspreader' event, says Dr Fauci
* Mr Vice President we already have over a million kits, of both the kits that we need for the Pfizer vaccine as well as the Moderna, different (interjection by Pence) s'cuse me, 100 million kits. Thank you.
** FEMA official at Coronavirus Taskforce briefing Video (~34:00) on November 19, 2020
* When the Vice President first asked me to help on the task force with different tasks, I asked the President what he expected from the task force and how I can best serve him and the task force. What the President asked is that all of the recommendations that we make be based on data. He wanted us to be very rigorous, to make sure that we were studying the data, collecting data. A lot of things in this country were happening very quickly, and we wanted to make sure that we were trying to keep updating our models and making sure that we were making informed decisions and informed recommendations to him based on the data that we were able to collect and put together.
** Jared Kushner, Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing (April 3, 2020), whitehouse.gov
* One thing I will say, just based on data, is that we’ve been getting a lot of data from different governors and from different mayors and from different cities. One thing I’ve seen FEMA do very, very well, over the last week or so, is now we’re getting real-time data from a lot of cities. People who have requests for different products and supplies, a lot of them are doing it based on projections, which are not the realistic projections. The projections change every day as we see the cases, as we see the impacts of the "stop the spread" effort that this task force recommended and the President has been pushing forward. So I do think that we’ll see that. Hopefully, there’ll be impact of that. And the task force has been working very hard, through the FEMA group, with Admiral Polowczyk to make sure that we’re getting the supplies to people before they run out, and making sure that we’re doing it in a proper way.
** Jared Kushner, Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing (April 3, 2020), whitehouse.gov
* And what they’ve done over the last 13 days has been really extraordinary. We’ve done things that the government has never done before, quicker than they’ve ever done it before. And what we’re seeing now is we found a lot of supplies in the country. We’ve been distributing them where we anticipate there will be needs, and also trying to make sure that we’re hitting places where there are needs. So I can tell you the people on the — in the task force, they’re working day and night. You’ve got a lot of people in the government. We recognize the challenge that America faces right now. We know what a lot of the people on the frontlines are facing, the fear that they have that they won’t have the supplies they need. And our goal is to work as hard as we can to make sure that we don’t let them down.
** Jared Kushner, Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing (April 3, 2020), whitehouse.gov
* That White House Coronavirus Task Force met today. It was reported to us that, at this moment, more than 746,000 Americans have tested positive for the coronavirus. Fortunately, more than 68,000 Americans have fully recovered. But sadly, more than 41,000 Americans have lost their lives to the coronavirus. And we always want to express our deepest sympathies to the families in their loss, as well as to all the families who have loved ones that are struggling with this disease.
** Mike Pence, Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing, (April 19, 2020), whitehouse.gov
* Today, we’ve seen encouraging news again about our progress as a nation. President Trump reflected on those momentarily. But the coronavirus White House Task Force today learned that our large metro areas continue to stabilize and even see progress. The New York metro area, including New Jersey, New York, Long Island, Connecticut, and Rhode Island all appear to be past their peak. The Detroit metro area also appears to be past its peak and is stable. New Orleans metro area actually is the most stable of all areas where we had a major metropolitan outbreak. And the Denver metro area is stable. We’re dealing in Colorado with a meatpacking plant issue. And, of course, California and Washington remain low and steady. Areas that we continue to watch carefully on the task force include the Chicago metro area, Boston metro, and the Philadelphia metropolitan area. The progress that we are making is a tribute to the — the American people. It’s a tribute to state and local leaders in all of these areas and the partnership that our President has forged. But we just want to encourage every American, as we see this progress, to continue to heed your state and local authorities. I think the American people know no one wants to reopen America more than President Donald Trump. But I want to assure you we’re going to continue to work with governors of every state, with the President's Guidelines for Opening Up America Again. And we’re going to work in a way that we can consolidate the progress that we have made and help move our states toward reopening our country.
** Mike Pence, Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing, (April 19, 2020), whitehouse.gov
* It really is remarkable to think about the progress the American people have made over the last several months. When the president tapped me to lead the White House Coronavirus Task Force, he gave us the first objective is to save lives. And to focus on slowing the spread, bending the curve. And because of the extraordinary efforts of the American people, we continue to see every day evidence that cases are declining, hospitalizations are declining. That's a tribute to the American people. Frankly, it's a tribute to all of those governors, governors in both parties across the country who put these mitigation efforts into effect.
** Mike Pence, in an interview with Chuck Todd at Meet the Press (April 19, 2020). Transcript online at NBCNews.com
* I also created a White House virus task force. It’s a big thing, a virus task force. I requested 2.5 billion dollars to ensure we have the resources we need. The Democrats said, "That’s terrible. He’s doing the wrong thing. He needs eight and a half billion, not two and a half." I’ve never had that before. I ask for two and a half, they want to give me eight and a half, so I said, "I’ll take it." Does that make me a bad… I’ll take it. I’ll take it. I never had that before. I never had it. We want two and a half million. That’s plenty. We demand you take eight and a half. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. We want eight and a half. These people are crazy. We must understand that border security is also health security. And you’ve all seen the wall has gone up like magic. It’s gone up like magic. You think that was an easy one? That was not an easy one. It’s going up great and we’re up now 132 miles and this is the exact wall that border security, water, everything.
** Donald Trump, at Charleston, South Carolina Rally (February 28, 2020), transcript online at Rev.

## See also

* List of the White House Coronavirus Task Force members

## External links

* White House team on testing from Politico
* Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-2019). U.S. Department of State.
* Authority control: WorldCat search