White House Announces New Pandemic Response Office

U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during an event about lowering health care costs in the East Room of the White House on July 7, 2023. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

The Biden administration is creating a new pandemic preparedness office that will oversee federal efforts in countering large-scale health threats.

“As part of the President’s commitment to ensure that our country is more prepared for a pandemic than we were when he took office, the Administration is standing up the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy (OPPR),” the White House said in a July 21 statement.

A permanent office in the Executive Office of the President, OPPR will be “charged with leading, coordinating, and implementing actions related to preparedness for, and response to, known and unknown biological threats or pathogens that could lead to a pandemic or to significant public health-related disruptions in the United States.”

The new department will replace the existing “COVID-19 Response Team and Mpox Team at the White House” and aid in addressing potential public health threats and outbreaks from COVID-19, polio, RSV, avian and human influenza, and Mpox.

Then-Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Jonathan Rath Hoffman and Joint Staff Surgeon Air Force Brig. Gen. (Dr.) Paul Friedrichs brief the media about the Defense Department’s response to COVID-19 at the Pentagon on March 16, 2020. DoD/ Lisa Ferdinando

Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Paul Friedrichs will head the new office. Dr. Friedrichs is currently special assistant to the president and senior director for global health security and biodefense at the National Security Council (NSC), according to the statement.

He'll start in the new role on Aug. 7.

“Prior to joining the NSC, Dr. Friedrichs most recently served as the Joint Staff Surgeon and the medical advisor to the Department of Defense (DOD) COVID-19 Task Force,” the White House statement reads.

The new department will oversee the development, manufacturing, and procurement of next-generation medical countermeasures to pandemic threats, including utilizing emerging technologies. The office will work with the Department of Health and Human Services on next-generation vaccines and treatments for public health threats such as COVID-19.

WHO Pandemic Accord

The Biden administration’s announcement of the new OPPR office comes as the World Health Organization (WHO) is engaged in drafting a global convention on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response.

Member states of the WHO have been working on the accord since February 2022, a draft of which is expected to be submitted for consideration next year at the organization’s decision-making body.

The aim of the accord will be to reportedly build resilience to pandemics; support the prevention, detection, and response to outbreaks having pandemic potential; ensure “equitable access” to pandemic countermeasures; and support “global coordination through a stronger and more accountable WHO,” per the organization.

The convention will exist under the WHO constitution and will have both legally binding as well as non-legally binding components.

“Member States will decide the terms of the accord, including whether any of its provisions will be legally binding on Member States as a matter of international law,” the WHO stated.

In case a member of the accord doesn’t meet its obligations, “it would be up to Member States to decide if and what compliance mechanisms would be included in the new accord on pandemic preparedness and response.”

A sign outside World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, on Aug. 17, 2020. Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images

Since the accord will exist under the WHO constitution, the organization can have the authority to determine national health policies. Article 19 of the WHO Constitution provides the World Health Assembly, which is the decision-making body of the WHO, the power to adopt conventions on health.

Article 21 expands these powers, giving the assembly the authority to adopt rules regarding “sanitary and quarantine requirements and other procedures” during periods of global outbreaks. This essentially gives the WHO the right to determine lockdowns.

Article 21 also gives the organization authority to decide what amounts to a pandemic, how testing can be carried out, what test results would be considered positive or negative, and which drugs to suppress and approve.

It’s unknown whether there’s any relationship between the Biden administration’s OPPR and the WHO’S pandemic accord.

In February, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) introduced bill S.444, which would require any international pandemic agreement by the WHO to be subjected to ratification by the U.S. Senate.

America’s COVID-19 Response

Since the worldwide COVID-19 outbreak started in Wuhan, China, the U.S. government has imposed various measures aimed at controlling and ending the pandemic.

In March 2020, the administration declared a nationwide emergency. Several states implemented shutdowns to prevent the spread of the disease, with places such as schools, restaurants, and bars closed. The White House also imposed social distancing measures.

In April 2020, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended Americans wear a mask when outside their homes.

In December 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for Pfizer’s mRNA vaccines. That same month, Moderna’s vaccine also received EUA approval. A few months later, in February 2021, EUA was given to Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine. Later on, booster shots of vaccines were also green-lit.

The government continued to promote vaccination against COVID-19 all through the pandemic period. The COVID-19 public health emergency declaration came to an end in May.

First-grade student, 6-year-old Leonel Campos, receives a COVID-19 vaccine at Arturo Velasquez Institute in Chicago on Nov. 12, 2021. Scott Olson/Getty Images

However, many of the promoted pandemic-era measures have been found to have had adverse effects.

A March report from global macro investment firm Phinance Technologies found that COVID-19 vaccines led to more than 26 million people in the United States suffering injuries, costing almost $150 billion to the economy.

A January 2022 meta-analysis (pdf) of 24 studies determined that lockdowns had “little to no” public health effects. On the contrary, such measures have imposed “enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted.”

“In consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument,” the analysis reads.

The policy of mandatory face masks is reported to have been harmful to people. A February 2021 study found that 68 percent of parents believed masking harmed their children, with reported harms including headaches, impaired learning, difficulty in concentration, and less happiness.