CDC says it missed the Mark on Covid response

Dana Malcolm

Staff Writer

#USA, August 25, 2022 – The US Center for Disease Control is re-organizing after its director Rochelle Walensky admitted that “performance did not meet expectations.”

The director admitted the shortfall not to the public, but in a private staff memo that the Washington Post obtained.

Critics say the agency did not move fast enough at the beginning of the outbreak. A call that has been echoed with the monkeypox pandemic even as the country watched millions of doses expire and are now struggling to provide more.

“For 75 years, the CDC and public health have been preparing for COVID-19, and in our big moment, our performance did not reliably meet expectations—My goal is a new, public health action-oriented culture at CDC that emphasizes accountability, collaboration, communication, and timeliness,” Walensky said in the memo which was reportedly based on an internal review which criticized the agency’s lag in getting information to the public.

There have been consistent changes in the CDC’s strategy for fighting Covid since the pandemic was declared. The agency moved from extremely tight protocols, including lockdowns and quarantining, to their current much looser system as vaccines were distributed throughout the country.

Issues with data collection development of tests and vaccine rollout all affected the nation’s ability to fight the disease.

The initiative to rework the agency will be headed by an executive team that will report directly to Walensky.