Six Questions for USAID’s New COVID-19 Task Force Executive Director
USAID’s leadership role in the global COVID-19 response
From 2013 to 2017, Jeremy Konyndyk led the U.S. Government’s response to international disasters ranging from the 2014 Ebola outbreak to crises in Syria, Yemen, Haiti, and beyond. Now returning to government as the new Executive Director of USAID’s COVID-19 Task Force, he faces another challenge — spearheading the Agency’s response to the largest global health crisis in modern history.
COVID-19 is an unprecedented challenge that threatens the health of people worldwide. Since the start of the outbreak, USAID has provided billions of dollars to respond to the crisis and prevent future pandemics.
Under President Biden’s plan to beat COVID-19 — and fueled by billions of dollars from the American Rescue Plan — USAID is taking an even bigger role to help end the pandemic. That means not only controlling the virus, but tackling challenges like rising food crises, getting children back into schools, and protecting the historic progress we have made against diseases like measles, polio, HIV/AIDS, and malaria.
For more on USAID’s COVID-19 response, Jeremy answers some of our most pressing questions.
1. Why is a global response essential to ending the pandemic?
The disruption and threats we face from this pandemic are global, and America cannot beat them without a fully global response. The COVID-19 variants that are spreading across the U.S. provide a vivid example of why we cannot separate our success from the world at large. Raging outbreaks overseas spawned new and more dangerous COVID strains, which then began spreading in the United States and eroding progress we have made in reducing transmission over the past few months.
We will not be able to get back to a semblance of “normal” — or some kind of “new normal” — until we contain the virus around the world and end the ongoing disruption to the global economy. The global economy stands to lose trillions of dollars if we fail to effectively respond to the pandemic worldwide. Our safety from the virus and our prospects for a durable economic rebound are closely intertwined with the world’s safety and economic recovery.
2. How is USAID tackling COVID-19 in developing countries?
We are helping to end the pandemic in several ways:
- We are accelerating global vaccine access as the world’s largest donor to COVAX, the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access initiative. With bipartisan support from Congress, we are supporting safe and effective vaccines for 92 low- and middle-income countries through a $2 billion contribution — out of a total planned $4 billion. Not only are we helping to get vaccines to the world’s most vulnerable and at-risk populations, but we are also building stronger health systems to protect communities for generations to come.
- We have rapidly pivoted existing health programs to reduce the spread of the virus and save lives in more than 120 countries. We have boosted large-scale testing and contact tracing, prevented and controlled infections in health care facilities, and supported the distribution of critical public health information to more than 300 million people through mass media.
- Through the American Rescue Plan, we are expanding our efforts even further, providing nearly $11 billion through USAID and the State Department to address the immediate and secondary effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, saving lives and livelihoods in the U.S. and globally. With the resources the plan provides, we will help countries prepare for vaccine rollout, protect health workers, and equip health facilities with the expertise and supplies to save more lives. We will support efforts to reduce community transmission while global vaccine supply accelerates. And we will also target the pandemic’s severe effects in a range of other areas, from rising famine risks and poverty to declining health services overall.
3. Why is the U.S. paying for COVID-19 vaccines in other countries?
Vaccines are one of the most powerful and efficient tools at our disposal to manage global health threats. But even if we vaccinate everyone in the United States, we still will not be fully safe from COVID-19.
To end the pandemic together as a global community, we must win the race between vaccinating all of humanity and the emergence of new and even more dangerous variants, which could threaten us all.
Through COVAX, we are supporting the distribution of vaccines globally without slowing down or diverting supply from our urgent domestic effort to vaccinate Americans.
And there is an economic incentive to vaccinate as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, both domestically and globally. Our economic recovery in the U.S. depends on the recovery of the global economy. If other countries still face economic disruptions because of the pandemic, our economy will suffer as well.
But beyond the checkbook argument, this is unambiguously the right thing to do. Americans have long supported vaccines globally because they demonstrate the shared values we seek to promote across the world.
4. What are the two biggest challenges for USAID’s COVID-19 work this year?
There are two things that I’m particularly concerned about: the race against variants, and the toll on personnel responding to the pandemic. We have seen multiple variants emerge that have undermined the efficacy of control measures, spread more easily than the original COVID-19, and have a higher mortality rate. Until we accelerate vaccinations, the variants are prevailing. The Biden-Harris Administration is working to expand and accelerate the ambition of the global vaccination effort to avert new and even more dangerous variants, and to protect people in the meantime by surging support for clinical treatment and public health interventions.
But everything we do hinges on people, and the world’s pandemic responders are exhausted. Frontline health workers have been working flat-out for over a year in the face of enormous risks. Many have lost their lives, and many in the countries where we work do not have the support and protection that they need. We need to double down on supporting them as we enter this critical period of battling the virus while global vaccine availability expands.
5. How is USAID adapting its work to the new reality of COVID-19?
Alongside our health programs, we have pivoted our work across all sectors. We are responding to the pandemic’s effects on humanitarian needs, economic livelihoods, food security, education, democracy, and more. For example, while an estimated 1.6 billion students have been affected by school closures, USAID is supporting virtual education in more than 50 countries. In addition, we are providing urgent assistance to the people who are most vulnerable to the pandemic’s immediate consequences. Our immediate support includes supplying emergency services in 50 countries, as well as delivering emergency food assistance to more than 4.7 million people affected by lockdowns and stressors from COVID-19. Responding proactively to the pandemic’s effects across all sectors is critical to sustaining USAID’s historic progress in improving lives globally.
6. If we do our jobs right, what will a post-COVID-19 world look like?
Through our global health work, a post-COVID-19 world will be better prepared to prevent avoidable outbreaks, detect threats early, and respond rapidly. However, we will need to spend the next decade addressing the pandemic’s many follow-on impacts, from democratic backsliding to the risk of millions falling back into poverty. As our new Vision for Health System Strengthening 2030 makes clear, our longer-term goal is to create a world where everyone can access quality health care. Together, we are fighting for a future free of deadly pandemics.
About the Author
Jeremy Konyndyk is the Executive Director of USAID’s COVID-19 Task Force.
