The White House has selected Tom Inglesby, MD, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore, Md., as it's new COVID-19 testing director.
The White House's press secretary, Jen Psaki, confirmed the appointment in a Jan. 12 tweet.
The announcement comes as the Biden administration works to boost access to testing across the country. The nation's testing capacity has grown from 50 million a month in September to 300 million, Ms. Psaki told reporters when announcing the appointment, The Washington Post reports.
"We're going to keep moving at this speed, and faster, to get volume up on a monthly basis," Dr. Inglesby, who is on leave from his role at Johns Hopkins, told Bloomberg, adding that details about the federal government's plan to ship 500 million at-home tests to U.S. households will be released this week.
Dr. Inglesby has held a number of roles in the fields of infectious disease and public health preparedness. From 2010-19, he was chair of the Board of Scientific Counselors for the Center for Preparedness and Response at the CDC. He has also served as an adviser to HHS.