Dr. Rochelle Walensky, who has been serving as the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States, has announced her resignation effective June 30, 2022. She had been in the position for just over two years.
In a letter to President Joe Biden, Rochelle Walensky, M.D., announced her resignation from the position of director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention effective June 30. Walensky reflected on her time at the CDC, stating that her goal was to lead the agency and public health out of the “dark days” of the pandemic and into a more trusted position. She expressed pride in the thousands of individuals at the agency who work tirelessly to ensure public health.
Prior to her role as the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Rochelle Walensky, 54, served as an infectious disease specialist at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Although she lacked prior experience in running a government health agency, she assumed the position in early 2021 and successfully managed the Atlanta-based public health agency with its 12,000 employees and $12 billion budget.
President Joe Biden lauded Dr. Rochelle Walensky’s leadership, describing her as unwaveringly focused on the health of all Americans and having saved lives during her tenure as the director of the CDC. He credited her with leading the agency through the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic with honesty and integrity. In a statement, the president said that Walensky’s leadership has left the CDC a more robust and better-prepared organization to handle health threats and safeguard the health of the nation.
According to the Associated Press, during her tenure at the CDC, Walensky launched a center for forecasting and outbreak analytics and initiated a reorganization of the agency last year to enhance its response time and communication with the American public.
According to the AP, some of Walensky’s decisions during her tenure as the CDC director were criticized, including the statement made in the spring of 2021 that fully vaccinated individuals could stop wearing masks in most situations, just before the delta variant started spreading across the country. Additionally, the decision to shorten isolation and quarantine times in December 2021 was also questioned by some. As of now, an interim director has not been announced yet.
