CDC Director Rochelle Walensky Resigns

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky has turned in her resignation letter, and will leave the disease control center in late June.

CDC Director Resigns

Centers for Disease and Control Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky announced she would resign from her position after managing the agency throughout the first two years of the Biden administration’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Her announcement comes the same day the World Health Organization announced that Covid-19 is no longer a global health emergency.

Biden Praises Walensky

President Joe Biden made a statement on Friday praising Dr. Walensky upon her announcement:

“Dr. Walensky has saved lives with her steadfast and unwavering focus on the health of every American. As Director of the CDC, she led a complex organization on the frontlines of a once-in-a-generation pandemic with honesty and integrity. She marshalled our finest scientists and public health experts to turn the tide on the urgent crises we’ve faced.”

“I have never been prouder of anything I have done in my professional career,” Walensky, 54, wrote to President Biden, informing him that her last day will be June 30.

Walensky said she’s had “mixed feelings” about the move but noted that the end of pandemic-era emergency declarations was an appropriate moment to step down.

Walensky’s Tenure and High Profile Career

Walensky served as an infectious disease specialist at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. She had no experience running a governmental health agency until being sworn in as the CDC’s director in 2021.

Her tenure during the pandemic had its ups and downs. Walensky said in spring 2021 that fully vaccinated people could stop wearing masks in many spaces, but reversed course as the new delta variant began to spread across the nation. In December 2021, the CDC also released new guidelines, shortening isolation and quarantine time frames, which caught many people by surprise.

The World Health Organization said Friday that COVID-19 no longer qualifies as a global emergency, and the U.S. public health emergency declaration will expire next week. Deaths in the U.S. are at their lowest point since the earliest days of the coronavirus outbreak in early 2020.

The CDC, with a $12 billion budget and more than 12,000 employees is an Atlanta-based federal agency who focused on disease outbreaks and other public health issues.

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