WASHINGTON: The Senate confirmed Xavier Becerra as Health and Human Services secretary on Thursday as the U.S. aims to contain Covid-19 and achieve a semblance of normal life by summer.

Xavier Becerra, California’s attorney general, won approval by a narrow 50-49 margin in a Senate evenly split by party. Nearly all Republicans opposed the former U.S. representative’s nomination, questioning his health-care experience and past support for “Medicare for All.”, , reports Xinhua news.

Republican Senators opposing Becerra's nomination largely pointed to his support to abortion rights and lack of experience in the public health realm.

But the claims were pushed back by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat who offered a counter-argument saying the Republicans confirmed former President Donald Trump's HHS Secretary Alex Azar, "a pharmaceutical executive who raised drug prices and tried to undermine our nation's health law".

A Congressman for 24 years representing Los Angeles' Congressional districts, Becerra will become the first Latino HHS Secretary, leading the department at a crucial time when new surge in coronavirus cases is feared in the US, the worst-hit country in the world.

Public health officials and experts have warned that the US will likely experience another spike in coronavirus infections in the March-April period, given both the loosening, outright abandoning, in some cases, of restrictions in many states and the emergence and transmission of possibly more infectious and lethal new virus variants.

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