WILMINGTON, Del. — Pres­i­dent-elect Joe Biden sig­naled on Sun­day he plans to move quick­ly to build out his gov­ern­ment, focus­ing first on the rag­ing pan­dem­ic that will like­ly dom­i­nate the ear­ly days of his administration.

Biden named a for­mer sur­geon gen­er­al, Dr. Vivek Murthy, and a for­mer Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion com­mis­sion­er, David Kessler, as co-chairs of a coro­n­avirus work­ing group set to get start­ed, with oth­er mem­bers expect­ed to be announced Monday.

Tran­si­tion team offi­cials said that also this week Biden will launch his agency review teams, the group of tran­si­tion staffers that have access to key agen­cies in the cur­rent admin­is­tra­tion to ease the trans­fer of pow­er. The teams will col­lect and review infor­ma­tion such as bud­getary and staffing deci­sions, pend­ing reg­u­la­tions and oth­er work in progress from cur­rent staff at the depart­ments to help Biden’s team pre­pare to tran­si­tion. White House offi­cials would not com­ment on whether they would coop­er­ate with Biden’s team on the review.

“Peo­ple want the coun­try to move for­ward,” said Kate Bed­ing­field, Biden deputy cam­paign man­ag­er, in an inter­view on NBC’s “Meet the Press, and see Biden and Vice Pres­i­dent-elect Kamala Har­ris “have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to do the work, to get the virus under con­trol and to get our econ­o­my back together.”

It’s unclear for now whether Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and his admin­is­tra­tion will coop­er­ate. He has yet to acknowl­edge Biden’s vic­to­ry and has pledged to mount legal chal­lenges in sev­er­al close­ly con­test­ed states that decid­ed the race.

Biden advis­er Jen Psa­ki pressed for the Trump-appoint­ed head of the Gen­er­al Ser­vices Admin­is­tra­tion to quick­ly rec­og­nize Biden as the pres­i­dent-elect, which would free up mon­ey for the tran­si­tion and clear the way for Biden’s team to begin putting in place the tran­si­tion process at agencies.

“America’s nation­al secu­ri­ty and eco­nom­ic inter­ests depend on the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment sig­nal­ing clear­ly and swift­ly that the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment will respect the will of the Amer­i­can peo­ple and engage in a smooth and peace­ful trans­fer of pow­er,” Psa­ki said in a Twit­ter posting.

A GSA offi­cial said Sun­day that step had not been tak­en yet.

A bipar­ti­san group of admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials from the Barack Oba­ma, George W. Bush, and Bill Clin­ton admin­is­tra­tions on Sun­day called on the Trump admin­is­tra­tion to move for­ward “to imme­di­ate­ly begin the post-elec­tion tran­si­tion process.”

“This was a hard-fought cam­paign, but his­to­ry is replete with exam­ples of pres­i­dents who emerged from such cam­paigns to gra­cious­ly assist their suc­ces­sors,” mem­bers of the Cen­ter for Pres­i­den­tial Tran­si­tion advi­so­ry board said in a statement.

The state­ment was signed by Bush White House chief of staff Josh Bolten and Health and Human Ser­vices Sec­re­tary Michael Leav­itt as well as Bill Clin­ton-era chief of staff Thomas “Mack” McLar­ty and Oba­ma Com­merce Sec­re­tary Pen­ny Pritzker.

Biden aides said the pres­i­dent-elect and tran­si­tion team had been in touch with Repub­li­can law­mak­ers. Israel’s prime min­is­ter, Ben­jamin Netanyahu, one of Trump’s clos­est allies, opened a Cab­i­net meet­ing on Sun­day by con­grat­u­lat­ing Biden, a for­mer vice pres­i­dent and long­time senator.

“I have a long and warm per­son­al con­nec­tion with Joe Biden for near­ly 40 years, and I know him as a great friend of the state of Israel,” Netanyahu said. “I am cer­tain that we will con­tin­ue to work with both of them in order to fur­ther strength­en the spe­cial alliance between Israel and the U.S.”

George W. Bush, the sole liv­ing Repub­li­can for­mer pres­i­dent, also wished Biden well.

“Though we have polit­i­cal dif­fer­ences, I know Joe Biden to be a good man, who has won his oppor­tu­ni­ty to lead and uni­fy our coun­try,” Bush said.

Biden faces key staffing deci­sions in the days ahead. The always-fren­zied 10-week tran­si­tion peri­od before Inau­gu­ra­tion Day on Jan. 20 already has been short­ened by the extra time it took to deter­mine the win­ner of Tuesday’s election.

The sec­ond Catholic to be elect­ed pres­i­dent, Biden start­ed his first full day as pres­i­dent-elect by attend­ing church at St. Joseph on the Brandy­wine near his home in Wilm­ing­ton, as he does near­ly every week. After the ser­vice, he vis­it­ed the church ceme­tery where sev­er­al fam­i­ly mem­bers have been laid to rest, includ­ing his late son, Beau.

Beau Biden, a for­mer Delaware attor­ney gen­er­al, died in 2015 from can­cer. Before his death, he had encour­aged his father to make a third run for the White House.

Joe Biden said Sat­ur­day in a vic­to­ry speech that he would announce a task force of sci­en­tists and experts Mon­day to devel­op a “blue­print” to begin beat­ing back the virus by the time he assumes the pres­i­den­cy. He said his plan would be “built on bedrock sci­ence” and “con­struct­ed out of com­pas­sion, empa­thy and concern.”

Murthy, who had advised Biden dur­ing the cam­paign, was named to a four-year term as sur­geon gen­er­al in 2014 by Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma. Murthy was asked to resign by Trump months into the Republican’s term. Kessler was appoint­ed as FDA com­mis­sion­er by Pres­i­dent George H.W. Bush and served in the posi­tion through Pres­i­dent Bill Clinton’s first term in the White House.

Biden senior advis­er Ted Kauf­man said the tran­si­tion team will focus on the “nuts and bolts” of build­ing the new admin­is­tra­tion in com­ing days.

Biden may not make top Cab­i­net choic­es for weeks. But he built his pres­i­den­tial run around bipar­ti­san­ship and he has spent the days since Tuesday’s elec­tion pledg­ing to be a pres­i­dent for all Amer­i­cans. That sug­gests he could be will­ing to appoint some Repub­li­cans to high-pro­file admin­is­tra­tion positions.

Many for­mer Repub­li­can office­hold­ers broke with Trump to endorse Biden’s cam­paign. Biden’s selec­tion of some of them to join the new gov­ern­ment could appease Sen­ate Repub­li­cans, who may have to con­firm many of Biden’s choic­es for top jobs. The GOP could retain con­trol of the cham­ber after two spe­cial elec­tions in Geor­gia on Jan. 5.

Still, too much across-the-aisle coop­er­a­tion could draw the ire of pro­gres­sives. Some already wor­ry that unco­op­er­a­tive Sen­ate Repub­li­cans could force Biden to scale back his ambi­tious cam­paign promis­es to expand access to health care and lead a post-pan­dem­ic eco­nom­ic recov­ery that relies on fed­er­al invest­ment in green tech­nol­o­gy and jobs to help com­bat cli­mate change.

“I think there will be a huge mis­use of the word ‘uni­ty’ to imply that we need to water down the ideas that Joe Biden just cam­paigned on,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Pro­gres­sive Change Cam­paign Com­mit­tee. He said the coun­try was more unit­ed around bold solu­tions to big prob­lems than small-scale efforts.

Biden’s efforts at bipar­ti­san rec­on­cil­i­a­tion could still be derailed by Trump’s refus­ing to con­cede the race.

Symone Sanders, a Biden cam­paign senior advis­er, said that while sev­er­al Repub­li­can law­mak­ers have been in con­tact with the pres­i­dent-elect in recent days, the cam­paign has yet to hear from White House officials.

“I think the White House has made clear what their strat­e­gy is here and that they are going to con­tin­ue to par­tic­i­pate and push for­ward these flail­ing and, in many — in many respects, base­less legal strate­gies,” Sanders said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Sen. Mitt Rom­ney, R‑Utah, said Trump had a right to pur­sue recounts and legal chal­lenges. But he not­ed that those efforts will unlike­ly change the out­come and he urged the pres­i­dent to dial back his rhetoric.

“I think one has to be care­ful in the choice of words. I think when you say the elec­tion was cor­rupt or stolen or rigged that that’s unfor­tu­nate­ly rhetoric that gets picked up by author­i­tar­i­ans around the world. And I think it also dis­cour­ages con­fi­dence in our demo­c­ra­t­ic process here at home,” Rom­ney said on NBC.

Mad­hani report­ed from Chica­go. Asso­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Zeke Miller in Wash­ing­ton and Steve Peo­ples in New York con­tributed to this report.