CDC Announces Overhaul After Botching Pandemic

After more than two years of missteps and backpedaling over Covid-19 guidance that had a profound effect on Americans’ lives, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced on Wednesday that the agency would undergo a complete overhaul – and will revamp everything from its operations to its culture after failing to meet expectations during the pandemic, Bloomberg reports.

Director Rochelle Walensky began telling CDC’s staff Wednesday that the changes are aimed at replacing the agency’s insular, academic culture with one that’s quicker to respond to emergencies. That will mean more rapidly turning research into health recommendations, working better with other parts of government and improving how the CDC communicates with the public. -Bloomberg

“For 75 years, CDC and public health have been preparing for Covid-19, and in our big moment, our performance did not reliably meet expectations,” said Director Rochelle Walensky. “I want us all to do better and it starts with CDC leading the way.  My goal is a new, public health action-oriented culture at CDC that emphasizes accountability, collaboration, communication and timeliness.”

As Bloomberg further notes, The agency has been faulted for an inadequate testing and surveillance program, for not collecting important data on how the virus was spreading and how vaccines were performing, for being too under the influence of the White House during the Trump administration and for repeated challenges communicating to a politically divided and sometimes skeptical public.”

A few examples:

• CDC Spreads Misinformation On Masking, Not Science
• CDC Admits No Record Of Naturally Immune Transmitting COVID-19
• CDC’s Masking Flip-Flop
• CDC Admits It Gave False Information About COVID-19 Vaccine Surveillance
• CDC Admits It Can’t Back Claim That Vaccines Don’t Cause Variants
• Causing Coronavirus Confusion Again

Walensky made the announcement in a Wednesday morning video message to CDC staff, where she said that the US has ‘significant work to do’ in order to improve the country’s public health defenses.

“Prior to this pandemic, our infrastructure within the agency and around the country was too frail to tackle what we confronted with Covid-19,” she said. “To be frank, we are responsible for some pretty dramatic, pretty public mistakes — from testing, to data, to communications.”

Expired: Trust the science

Wired: Trust the restructuring https://t.co/JL4G0JQOel

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 17, 2022

The CDC overhaul comes on the heels of the agency admitting that “unvaccinated people now have the same guidance as vaccinated people” – and that those exposed to COVID-19 are no longer required to quarantine.