Director of the Centers for Disease Control Rochelle Walensky departs after testifying before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on the All-Hazards Preparedness Act on the Dirksen Senate Office Constructing on Thursday, May 4, 2023 in Washington, DC.
Kent Nishimura | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky on Friday announced that she is going to resign in at the top of June, ending a tenure marked by repeated change to adapt to an evolving coronavirus crisis.
Walensky didn’t provide a selected reason for her departure, but noted in a letter to President Joe Biden that the U.S. is transitioning out of the emergency of the Covid-19 response.
“The tip of the COVID-19 public health emergency marks an amazing transition for our country, for public health, and in my tenure as CDC Director,” Walensky wrote within the letter.
“I took on this role, at your request, with the goal of forsaking the dark days of the pandemic and moving CDC – and public health – forward right into a a lot better and more trusted place,” she said.
Biden, in an announcement, thanked Walensky for her service.
“Dr. Walensky leaves CDC a stronger institution, higher positioned to confront health threats and protect Americans,” the president said.
Walensky assumed leadership of the battered agency in early 2021 because the U.S. was rolling out its Covid vaccination campaign. She helmed the general public health agency while the national pandemic response faced repeated setbacks from the emergence of the delta and omicron variants.
The U.S. public health emergency will end on Thursday. The World Health Organization on Friday declared an end to the worldwide Covid health emergency.
Walensky acknowledged in August 2022 that the CDC’s response to the pandemic was inadequate. She launched a reorganization that sought to make the agency faster at responding to disease threats and improve its communication of health guidance to the general public.
However the CDC still struggles to answer public health threats on account of limited authority within the face of a fragmented health-care system. The agency could have less data to trace Covid and recent variants when the general public health emergency expires since it cannot compel states to report this information.
Walensky also helped lead the U.S. response to the sudden outbreak of mpox in the summertime of 2022.
She lead the infectious disease division at Massachusetts General Hospital and was a professor of medication at Harvard Medical School before joining the Biden administration. Walensky is an authority on HIV.
