Dr. Anthony Fauci may be a household name for your family. But what about Andy Slavitt? He is a policy expert who served in the Obama administration first to save health.gov and then as acting administrator of
the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. During the pandemic he provided reliable, relatable information and education with his daily tweets at @ASlavitt and award-winning “In the Bubble with Andy Slavitt” podcast. He quickly became a household name with my family and a trusted resource. Many trusted him and looked to him for insight.
He served as President Biden’s Senior Advisor on COVID-19 for the first 120 days of the new administration. He is now back from the White House and in his chair on the renamed podcast – “In the Bubble with Andy Slavitt: Our Shot”. As the podcast description says, “Just as he took us through the pandemic, this 10-week series called Our Shot is about leading us out. It’s an insider’s guide for getting closure on what happened, how we emerge, and what must come next.”
Busy as my schedule is, I am trying to keep up with this new series. So far, I have heard his interviews with CDC Director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, and President Biden’s Press Secretary, Jen Psaki. And I am halfway through Andy’s just released book written primarily prior to his recent stint in the Biden Administration. His book, “Preventable – The Inside Story of How Leadership Failures, Politics, and Selfishness Doomed the U.S Coronavirus Response”, is a must read. Not just to understand what happened but how do we prevent it from happening again.
While COVID-19 may seem to be behind us, it is not when you consider the variants and the percent of the population not yet fully vaccinated. I encourage you to continue to listen to the experts. I mentioned Andy’s podcast in previous posts when I highlighted my go to podcasts. And I mentioned Andy and others in a December post, “8 health experts to follow”. I would certainly add Dr. Walensky to that list now – @CDCDirector – as she brings back credibility and trust in this critically important agency.
And one more expert to add to the list – my colleague and Chief Innovation Officer at Boston Children’s Hospital, John Brownstein – @johnbrownstein. He is an infectious disease epidemiologist, professor at Harvard Medical School, medical contributor at ABC, and founder of @VaccineFinder. I’m honored to be interviewing John later today at the HealthIMPACT Live Summer Forum keynote session: “COVID-19 – The Path Forward: A Big Data Approach to Eliminate Existing Gaps in Vaccine Distribution and Overcome Vaccine Hesitancy”.
I closed my COVID-19 blog posts last year with this message – “Be well. Be strong. Be smart.” I cannot say it enough – be smart and stay informed, follow the science, and listen to the experts.
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