________
Source: Politico
CDC director orders agency overhaul, admitting flawed Covid-19 response
Rochelle Walensky wants to boost transparency by releasing data more quickly and to improve communication with the public.
Source: Politico
CDC director orders agency overhaul, admitting flawed Covid-19 response
Rochelle Walensky wants to boost transparency by releasing data more quickly and to improve communication with the public.
The CDC has come under intense pressure from Americans of all political stripes since the earliest days of the pandemic. | Greg Nash/AP Photo via Pool
By KRISTA MAHR | August 17, 2022
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is launching an overhaul of its structure and operations in an attempt to modernize the agency and rehabilitate its reputation following intense criticism of its handling of the coronavirus pandemic and, more recently, the growing monkeypox outbreak.
On Wednesday, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky shared a series of changes with CDC leadership and staff designed to "transform" the organization and its work culture by improving how the agency shares information, develops public health guidance and communicates with the American public.
"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. “As a long-time admirer of this agency and a champion for public health, I want us all to do better.”
The CDC restructuring follows two reviews conducted in recent months, one by Health Resources and Services Administration official Jim Macrae into the CDC’s pandemic response and another by CDC Chief of Staff Sherri Berger into agency operations.
The reviews concluded that the "traditional scientific and communication processes were not adequate to effectively respond to a crisis the size and scope of the COVID-19 pandemic," according to an agency statement.
Specifically, Macrae's review, which included 120 interviews with CDC staffers and people outside the agency, recommended a series of improvements, including releasing scientific findings and data more quickly to improve transparency, translating science into practical and easy-to-understand policy, improving communication with the public, working better with other agencies and public health partners, and training and incentivizing the agency’s workforce to respond better to public health emergencies.
There is consensus within the CDC that it "needs to make some changes for how it communicates and how it operates — to be faster, to be nimbler, to use more plain spoken language," said a CDC official, who was granted anonymity to discuss the changes before they were announced.
"People work incredibly, incredibly hard and care deeply about trying to make sure that the American people have the right information" the official said. “Maybe the way that a lot of the [Covid-19] response was structured, and some of the incentives that people have here, are just not aligned properly to really put the focus toward getting information to people quickly and how that information can benefit Americans' health."
An embattled agency
The CDC has come under intense pressure from Americans of all political stripes since the earliest days of the pandemic.
It has fended off a battery of allegations over the course of the crisis, from putting politics over its vow to "follow the science" to bungling messaging to putting Americans’ lives at risk as pandemic restrictions have eased.
As public health officials came under attack across the country, so has the agency’s authority to implement Covid-19 mitigation measures, with critics on one side accusing the agency of federal overreach and critics on the other accusing the agency of not doing enough.
Please go to Politico to read more.
________
More evidence of the 20 percent being taken out:
Accomplices in criminal RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) cases:
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.