The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced plans for an overhaul of the agency, citing its failure to meet expectations in its response to the coronavirus pandemic.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky outlined plans to reorganize the agency in a meeting with staff on Wednesday, embracing recommendations from an external review to prioritize public health needs faster and improve the agency’s communication with the public.
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“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,” Walensky said in a statement. “My goal is a new, public health action-oriented culture at CDC that emphasizes accountability, collaboration, communication, and timeliness.”
Walensky admitted that the agency was not prepared to handle the country’s response to the pandemic, saying it was responsible for “some pretty dramatic, pretty public mistakes — from testing, to data, to communications,” in a video message obtained by Bloomberg.
Mary Wakefield, a former deputy health secretary for the Obama administration, will lead the agency’s reorganization efforts. A new executive council will be tasked with prioritizing changes and tracking its progress with the agency’s annual budget of roughly $12 billion.
Details on what changes are coming to the agency have yet to be announced, though they are aimed at changing the CDC’s insular, academic culture to one that’s better equipped to handle public health emergencies. Some of the goals of the organizational changes are to share scientific findings faster, provide comprehensible communications, and develop a workforce to prepare for future emergencies.
The announcement is the result of a monthslong review of the agency led by a group of internal and external advisers tasked with crafting a path forward for the CDC as it handles the coronavirus pandemic and the monkeypox public health emergency.
“A review of the agency’s operating posture illustrated that traditional scientific and communication processes were not adequate to effectively respond to a crisis the size and scope of the COVID-19 pandemic,” the agency said in a statement. “The work ahead will take time and engagement at all levels of the organization.”
The agency has been criticized for its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, faulted for its botched vaccine distribution and poor public guidance, among other missteps. Republicans have complained of the agency’s mixed messaging and shifting goal posts regarding masking and social distancing guidelines.
Last summer, the agency prompted backlash when it recommended that people wear masks indoors in areas with high rates of COVID-19 transmission in July, just two months after it announced that those vaccinated would no longer need to wear masks indoors in most situations.
Walensky has also been the source of public confusion, making contradictory statements about COVID-19 guidance to what the agency recommends. Last year, she told a Senate committee that fully vaccinated individuals couldn’t pass COVID-19 to others, though the CDC’s website said that it only reduces the risk of transmission at the time.
The agency has already spent over $25,000 for media training and executive coaching for Walensky since early last year to improve her own communication skills.
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Over a million people in the United States have died from COVID-19 since January 2020, according to the CDC’s data.
