Director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Rochelle Walensky publicly condemned the way the health agency handled the Covid pandemic under her command this Wednesday (17). According to her, the agency failed to respond quickly to the crisis and its structure needs to be reviewed. The information is from The New York Times newspaper.
Walensky outlined a plan to reorganize the CDC in a meeting with his senior team. The goals are to prioritize public health needs and efforts to contain disease outbreaks and put less emphasis on publishing scientific articles on rare diseases.
The measures announced now emerged from an external review Walensky had ordered in April, after months of receiving criticism over his performance during the pandemic. His critics said that public messages about mask wearing and other Covid prevention measures were sometimes so confusing or changed so abruptly that they looked more like sketches than guidelines aimed at the public.
“For 75 years, the CDC and public health have prepared for Covid-19, and in our big moment, our performance has not lived up to expectations,” Walensky said. “My goal is a new action-oriented public health culture at CDC that emphasizes accountability, collaboration, communication, and speed.”
His plan, which was also presented in a video to the agency’s more than 11,000 employees, is less specific. But it was well received by at least some of the agency’s senior staff, as well as outside public health experts.
