GLAMMING UP

CDC to Undergo Makeover After Weathering Criticism Over COVID Response

Director Rochelle Walensky promised staff a month-long review aimed at bringing the agency into the modern age.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is set to undergo a comprehensive overhaul of its “structures, systems, and processes” after being raked by scorching criticism over its response to the pandemic, according to agency director Rochelle Walensky. A senior federal health official will come in for a month-long review, Walensky said in a Monday email circulated to agency employees, “to step back and strategically position CDC to support the future of public health.” The outside official was identified as Jim Macrae, an associate administrator for primary health care at the Health Resources and Services Administration, by The Washington Post, which viewed the email. At least three other health officials at the CDC have been selected by Walensky to act as human suggestion boxes, the newspaper reported. Walensky has set the revamp’s sights on institutionalizing new approaches to the agency’s “core capabilities,” she said in the email, including data reporting, communication with the public, health equity, and rapid responses to new diseases both home and abroad.