Wynn Resorts health consultant to advise Biden’s COVID task force
A health security adviser who assisted Wynn Resorts Ltd. in March when the coronavirus pandemic was taking off has been asked to advise President-elect Joe Biden’s COVID-19 task force, Biden’s transition team announced Monday.
Rebecca Katz, a well-known Georgetown University global health security professor, won’t serve on the Biden task force, but will guide in the incoming administration’s preparations.
Wynn CEO Matt Maddox introduced Katz in a company video in March at a time when company executives were encouraging workers to stay at home and not congregate while assuring them that they would continue to be paid.
Katz, director of the Center for Global Health Science and security at the Georgetown University Medical Center, addressed the 15,000 employees at Wynn’s Las Vegas and Boston properties at the time.
“Dr. Katz and I were in almost daily contact for months during the shutdown of the travel industry and with the benefit of her expertise, we developed our health and safety plan to successfully reopen Wynn Resorts’ properties,” Maddox said Monday. “I believe she is one of the brightest minds in global health security and congratulate her on her appointment.”
Maddox said he also received information on the disease in Macao as the company had just experienced closures in that market in February.
Early on, Katz projected explosive growth in the infection rate having followed the outbreak in Wuhan, China, since December.
Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on Twitter.
