Trump’s COVID-19 testing czar spent decades in Texas preparing for a pandemic

WASHINGTON — Adm. Brett Giroir spent years of his life in College Station preparing the U.S. and the state of Texas for a pandemic.

Now, the former head of the Health Science Center at Texas A&M is using that knowledge as the assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services, overseeing the country’s expansion of testing for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Giroir, 59, is filling a role that has taken center stage after the U.S. was slow to ramp up testing for COVID-19, even as the virus began spreading in America.

The first test kits from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were distributed to states in early February, but they quickly proved faulty. By the end of February, the Food and Drug Administration had begun rolling back federal regulations to allow more public and private laboratories to conduct tests. But the Trump administration still faced heavy criticism as states clamored to meet the demand for testing.

When asked on March 12 who was in charge of making sure people could be tested for COVID-19, Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the CDC, said he did not know.

The next day, Trump designated Giroir his testing czar.

The pediatrician and head of the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps has become a familiar face behind the lectern at White House briefings about the coronavirus, reciting statistics about the expansion of COVID-19 testing in cities around the country.

“I’m calling on every piece of experience I’ve had over time,” Giroir told the Dallas Morning News in an interview Friday. “I’m really calling on everything right now because this is a tremendous challenge. It’s a brand new virus that the world has never seen. We don’t have vaccines, we don’t have medications, and it’s challenging the health care system.”

A big job

The day before Giroir was named the head of testing, fewer than 10,000 tests had been performed in the U.S., according to The COVID Tracking Project. Since then, more than 125,000 additional tests have been done, with more than 15,000 of them positive for COVID-19.

Giroir is responsible for coordinating federal agencies to expand the availability of testing nationwide.

He is poised to take an even bigger role in the administration’s response after he was nominated March 18 to fill the U.S.’s empty seat on the World Health Organization Executive Board, pending Senate confirmation.

He says the team the president has assembled is working to develop a strategy to respond to needs as they arise. But that’s not always predictable.

“As they say, ‘The battle plan lasts until the first shot is fired.’ I think that to some degree characterizes this, but not totally," he said. "We have been war gaming pandemics, and that’s why we’re in a reasonably good position to address this even though it’s unprecedented in its scope and scale and how it’s spreading and the kinds of people it’s affected.”

The FDA announced a policy March 16 that allows state and territorial public health labs to authorize tests at other labs without federal approval, essentially ceding regulatory authority for COVID-19 testing to states and territories.

But despite the expansion of laboratories that are authorized to test for COVID-19, shortages of physical components needed to run tests have slowed the expansion of testing around the country.

The pandemic has disrupted supply chains as factories that produce these components are shut down or limited because of COVID-19 outbreaks.

Giroir said the national stockpile of additional medical supplies, such as ventilators, masks and test swabs, will allow the U.S. to meet demand for the time being.

“All the planning has really helped us to approach this in a much more sophisticated way than we would have been,” Giroir said. “Instead of starting at zero miles per hour, we’re starting at about 70 and accelerating to 100, and that’s exactly what we need to do.”

In a conference call with governors March 19, Giroir said the federal government was working to alleviate shortages, and he also reported dramatic ramp-up in testing, with the FDA projecting that 27.6 million tests would be made available by Saturday.

The rollout of mobile testing sites has also become a priority for the federal government in recent weeks.

Sites have opened in locations across the country and are operated by states in conjunction with the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. The sites can test 2,000 to 4,000 people a day and are expected to add tens of thousands of tests a week to the nation’s capacity, Giroir said at a March 15 White House briefing.

Career journey

Girior joined the Trump administration in February 2018 as assistant secretary for health. He briefly served as acting commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration last year before returning to Health and Human Services and being tapped to run the coronavirus testing effort.

In his current role, the Louisiana native will probably call on his education and experiences in the Lone Star State, where he spent decades of his life.

Raised by his mother, a cop, and his father, an oilfield worker, Giroir received his bachelor of arts degree in biology from Harvard in 1982, becoming the first college graduate in his family. He then moved to Texas and studied at UT Southwestern Medical Center for his doctorate, graduating in 1986.

Giroir stayed at UT Southwestern for the remainder of his medical training, eventually becoming a tenured professor. He became chief medical officer at Children’s Medical Center Dallas and did research that became widely known to combat a deadly outbreak of meningococcal disease.

“Me being a clinical doc is really important and being in a clinical ICU,” Giroir said. “I spent a lot of my career at [Children’s Medical Center] and taking care of very sick people, so I understand what it means. I understand what the health care workers are doing. I understand how ventilators work and how we need to think about them and deploy them.”

In 2004, Giroir joined the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, the organization that played a key role in the developing the internet. As deputy director and later director of the Defense Sciences Office, Giroir developed nationwide biodefense programs to combat man-made threats such as biological weapons and vaccines and treatments for emerging diseases.

In 2008, as vice chancellor for research at the Texas A&M System, Giroir secured millions of dollars and eventually federal approval for the establishment of an influenza-vaccine manufacturing facility at the Texas A&M Center for Innovation in Advanced Development and Manufacturing.

Giroir then led the center’s transition to the Texas A&M Health Science Center, becoming its CEO and executive vice president. The center mass-produces drugs and therapies to combat biological threats.

In 2014, the CDC confirmed the first U.S. case of Ebola in Dallas. A week later, Gov. Rick Perry formed the Texas Task Force on Infectious Disease Preparedness and Response to combat the deadly virus. Perry named Giroir director of the task force, leading a team of experts who advised state leaders in the face of the outbreak.

Giroir provided “steady, sound, and science-based guidance in leading our state's response to an Ebola outbreak,” Perry said in a statement.

“Our nation is fortunate to have Dr. Brett Giroir working to stem the spread of the coronavirus and save American lives,” Perry said. “Dr. Giroir is a brilliant, tireless, and proven leader in the biomedical community who brings unparalleled experience to America’s efforts against this pandemic.”

David Lakey, chief medical officer of the University of Texas System and then the commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services, was on the receiving end of Giroir’s advice during the Ebola outbreak and called the admiral “thoughtful and experienced.”

Giroir’s work made him one of the most esteemed biosecurity researchers in Texas.

Dr. Gerald Parker, director of the Texas A&M Pandemic and Biosecurity Policy Program, was originally recruited by Giroir to be the Health Science Center’s principal investigator and has known Giroir since his DARPA days, when Parker was at HHS.

The shortage of testing kits is one of the biggest problems the U.S. faces in battling COVID-19, Parker said, and Giroir’s experience makes him well-suited for the role.

“At the moment in time," Parker said, “we really need innovation, we need people thinking outside the box, we need creativity … and I think that’s what Admiral Giroir brings, is that innovative out-of-the-box thinking to solve our problems.”