White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Monday announced the return of public health briefings beginning this week as the country reels from more than 420,000 deaths from COVID-19 thus far.
Psaki said that the public health briefings will begin Wednesday and will be regular fixtures in the Biden administration for the foreseeable future.
“These will be science-led briefings. They will happen three times a week to provide Americans updates,” Psaki said, adding that the public health briefings reflect the Biden administration’s “commitment to being transparent and honest with the public about the pandemic and the work our whole of government team is doing every day” and that White House reporters could participate in those as well.
Asked later in the briefing whether President Biden will attend the upcoming public health briefings, unlike former President Trump, Psaki said that she suspects Biden will be briefed “far more regularly” than Trump was.
“I would not expect he attends every task force meeting, no, but he expects and requests regular briefings from the team and I expect he’ll get them,” Psaki said.
The return of public health briefings comes less than a week after Psaki told reporters to expect White House briefings every weekday going forward.
White House coronavirus task force briefings in the Trump administration came to an abrupt halt after the former president touted unfounded COVID-19 treatments, which included suggesting “injecting” a disinfectant to combat the coronavirus, during a briefing in late April.
Watch Psaki’s remarks below:
