Dr. Rochelle Walensky will step down as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), citing the progress made by the United States in the fight against Covid as the reason.
Valensky announced his decision on the same day that the World Health Organization announced that for the first time since January 30, 2020, COVID-19 is no longer a global public health emergency.
“I have never been so proud of what I have accomplished in my professional career,” Walensky wrote in a letter to President Biden. “My time at the CDC will forever remain the most precious time I have ever spent doing hard, necessary, and efficient work.”
Valensky, 54, will officially leave his post on June 30.
Biden appointed Valensky to lead the CDC just a month after winning the 2020 presidential election. At the time, Valensky, an infectious disease doctor, was teaching at Harvard Medical School and working in hospitals in Boston.
In response to Walensky’s resignation, Biden praised him in a statement for saving American lives and praised his honesty and integrity. “He has brought together our top scientists and public health experts to turn the tide in the urgent crises we are facing,” the president said.
“She led the CDC at what was arguably the most difficult time in its history, in the midst of an absolute crisis,” says Drew Altman, president and CEO of KFF.
“She took the helm a year after the pandemic, when it was discovered that the CDC had changed public health guidance due to political interference during the Trump administration. It has been an extremely difficult time for the CDC. Altman and others are grateful to him for trying to depoliticize the agency and set it on a better path. According to Altman, he ran the agency “with science and dignity.”
President Biden has yet to name a replacement.
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Source: La Opinion
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