Sharon LaFraniere, reporting for The New York Times:
“For 75 years, C.D.C. and public health have been preparing for Covid-19, and in our big moment, our performance did not reliably meet expectations,” Dr. Walensky said in a startling acknowledgment of the agency’s failings. “My goal is a new, public health, action-oriented culture at C.D.C. that emphasizes accountability, collaboration, communication and timeliness.”
The CDC’s response was certainly hurt by the Trump Administration’s operational ineptitude, but we still had many government agencies that still accomplished their basic functions between 2017 and 2021. A central theme in The Premonition was the CDC’s failure to take a wartime footing.
The best time to fix the CDC is 75 years ago. The second best time is today.