Rochelle Walensky to Lead CDC Amid Challenges

Rochelle Walensky’s, MD, MPH, Twitter bio includes her current job—chief of infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital—and her private job: “mother of boys,” referring to her 3 sons. That experience will be critical as she takes on one of the most contentious jobs in recent months. On Dec. 7, 2020, President-elect Biden appointed her to take over from Robert Redfield, MD, as the next head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Unlike many of President-elect Biden’s nominees, including California Attorney General Xavier Becerra who has been tapped for Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, Walensky will not require Senate confirmation, meaning she can hit the ground running on Jan. 20—and she plans to. She’ll be taking over a CDC that has come under fire for caving to political interference and vacillated on guidance and testing guidelines as it struggled to maintain credibility amid the worst public health crisis in a century.

Although Walensky is not an expert in respiratory diseases or coronaviruses  her Twitter bio contains some of the most reassuring words Americans in the midst of a pandemic could see: “Decision science researcher.”

“On January. 20, I will begin leading the CDC, which was founded in 1946 to meet precisely the kinds of challenges posed by this pandemic,” she wrote in a New York Times op-ed. “I agreed to serve as CDC. director because I believe in the agency’s mission and commitment to knowledge, statistics and guidance. I will do so by leading with facts, science and integrity — and being accountable for them, as the CDC. has done since its founding 75 years ago.”

She went on to insist that as CDC Director, “it will be my responsibility to make sure that the public trusts the agency’s guidance and that its staff feels supported.”

When President-elect Biden introduced her, she addressed the challenges facing the US. “The pandemic that brought me here today is one that struck America and the world more than 30 years ago because my medical training happened to coincide with some of the most harrowing years of the HIV/AIDS crisis. As a medical student, I saw firsthand how the virus ravaged bodies and communities. Inside the hospital, I witnessed people lose strength and hope. While outside the hospital, I witnessed those same patients, mostly gay men and members of vulnerable communities, be stigmatized and marginalized by their nation and many of its leaders.

“Now, a new virus is ravaging us. It’s striking hardest, once again, at the most vulnerable, the marginalized, the underserved. I’m honored to work with an administration that understands that leading with science is the only way to deliver breakthroughs, to deliver hope, and to bring our nation back to full strength. To the American people and to each and every one of you at the CDC, I promise to work with you, to harness the power of American science, to fight this virus and prevent unnecessary illness and deaths so that we can all get back to our lives.”

Among the tools she will have that her predecessor did not (for long) are not 1 but 2 vaccines, and possibly more soon. However, in a paper published in Health Affairs in November, Walensky and her co-authors reported on their mathematical simulation of vaccination that showed factors related to implementation “will contribute more to the success of vaccination programs than a vaccine’s efficacy as determined in clinical trials.” The benefits of a vaccine decline substantially, they add, in the event of manufacturing or deployment delays, or greater epidemic severity. Equally important, they note, is the need to address vaccine hesitancy. “Our findings demonstrate the need,” they wrote, “…to redouble efforts to promote public confidence in COVID-19 vaccines, and to encourage continued adherence to other mitigation approaches, even after a vaccine becomes available.”

In a Facebook Live event sponsored by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where Walensky received her MPH degree, she said there are other “substantial challenges” in distributing a coronavirus vaccine, including the fact that one quarter of Americans don’t have a primary care physician to guide their care.

Her appointment has won praise from health experts around the world not only for her extensive scientific background (BS degree in biochemistry and molecular biology from Washington University and a MD degree from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine) and experience but also for her communication skills. She regularly appears on CNN and has more than 50,000 followers on social media.

She will need those communication skills to undo the knot of suspicion and resistance surrounding the COVID vaccines. The year is young, but since January 1st, the 7-day average of deaths has exceeded 2,500 deaths every day and is continuing to rise. Hospitals are running out of room to care for those patients, and the many others with other needs. In 2019, according to the CDC’s latest data, more than 30 million people in the US had no health insurance; thousands of Americans now struggling financially are swelling those numbers.

Walensky definitely has her tasks cut out for her—and those are just the ones we know about now. But Ashish Jha, MD, MPH, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, who is also a renowned public health researcher, has no doubts about her capability. In December, he tweeted: “Running @CDCgov complicated, especially in a crisis. You need to 1. Communicate with the American people, 2. Run a sprawling organization, 3. Understand, effectively use tools of public health. Lots of people can do one of these. No one I know can do all 3 as well as @RWalensky.”

Rochelle Walensky’s, MD, MPH, Twitter bio includes her current job—chief of infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital—and her private job: “mother of boys,” referring to her 3 sons. That experience will be critical as she takes on one of the most contentious jobs in recent months. On Dec. 7, 2020, President-elect Biden appointed her to take over from Robert Redfield, MD, as the next head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Unlike many of President-elect Biden’s nominees, including California Attorney General Xavier Becerra who has been tapped for Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, Walensky will not require Senate confirmation, meaning she can hit the ground running on Jan. 20—and she plans to. She’ll be taking over a CDC that has come under fire for caving to political interference and vacillated on guidance and testing guidelines as it struggled to maintain credibility amid the worst public health crisis in a century.

Although Walensky is not an expert in respiratory diseases or coronaviruses  her Twitter bio contains some of the most reassuring words Americans in the midst of a pandemic could see: “Decision science researcher.”

“On January. 20, I will begin leading the CDC, which was founded in 1946 to meet precisely the kinds of challenges posed by this pandemic,” she wrote in a New York Times op-ed. “I agreed to serve as CDC. director because I believe in the agency’s mission and commitment to knowledge, statistics and guidance. I will do so by leading with facts, science and integrity — and being accountable for them, as the CDC. has done since its founding 75 years ago.”

She went on to insist that as CDC Director, “it will be my responsibility to make sure that the public trusts the agency’s guidance and that its staff feels supported.”

When President-elect Biden introduced her, she addressed the challenges facing the US. “The pandemic that brought me here today is one that struck America and the world more than 30 years ago because my medical training happened to coincide with some of the most harrowing years of the HIV/AIDS crisis. As a medical student, I saw firsthand how the virus ravaged bodies and communities. Inside the hospital, I witnessed people lose strength and hope. While outside the hospital, I witnessed those same patients, mostly gay men and members of vulnerable communities, be stigmatized and marginalized by their nation and many of its leaders.

“Now, a new virus is ravaging us. It’s striking hardest, once again, at the most vulnerable, the marginalized, the underserved. I’m honored to work with an administration that understands that leading with science is the only way to deliver breakthroughs, to deliver hope, and to bring our nation back to full strength. To the American people and to each and every one of you at the CDC, I promise to work with you, to harness the power of American science, to fight this virus and prevent unnecessary illness and deaths so that we can all get back to our lives.”

Among the tools she will have that her predecessor did not (for long) are not 1 but 2 vaccines, and possibly more soon. However, in a paper published in Health Affairs in November, Walensky and her co-authors reported on their mathematical simulation of vaccination that showed factors related to implementation “will contribute more to the success of vaccination programs than a vaccine’s efficacy as determined in clinical trials.” The benefits of a vaccine decline substantially, they add, in the event of manufacturing or deployment delays, or greater epidemic severity. Equally important, they note, is the need to address vaccine hesitancy. “Our findings demonstrate the need,” they wrote, “…to redouble efforts to promote public confidence in COVID-19 vaccines, and to encourage continued adherence to other mitigation approaches, even after a vaccine becomes available.”

In a Facebook Live event sponsored by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where Walensky received her MPH degree, she said there are other “substantial challenges” in distributing a coronavirus vaccine, including the fact that one quarter of Americans don’t have a primary care physician to guide their care.

Her appointment has won praise from health experts around the world not only for her extensive scientific background (BS degree in biochemistry and molecular biology from Washington University and a MD degree from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine) and experience but also for her communication skills. She regularly appears on CNN and has more than 50,000 followers on social media.

She will need those communication skills to undo the knot of suspicion and resistance surrounding the COVID vaccines. The year is young, but since January 1st, the 7-day average of deaths has exceeded 2,500 deaths every day and is continuing to rise. Hospitals are running out of room to care for those patients, and the many others with other needs. In 2019, according to the CDC’s latest data, more than 30 million people in the US had no health insurance; thousands of Americans now struggling financially are swelling those numbers.

Walensky definitely has her tasks cut out for her—and those are just the ones we know about now. But Ashish Jha, MD, MPH, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, who is also a renowned public health researcher, has no doubts about her capability. In December, he tweeted: “Running @CDCgov complicated, especially in a crisis. You need to 1. Communicate with the American people, 2. Run a sprawling organization, 3. Understand, effectively use tools of public health. Lots of people can do one of these. No one I know can do all 3 as well as @RWalensky.”

Rochelle Walensky’s, MD, MPH, Twitter bio includes her current job—chief of infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital—and her private job: “mother of boys,” referring to her 3 sons. That experience will be critical as she takes on one of the most contentious jobs in recent months. On Dec. 7, 2020, President-elect Biden appointed her to take over from Robert Redfield, MD, as the next head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Unlike many of President-elect Biden’s nominees, including California Attorney General Xavier Becerra who has been tapped for Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, Walensky will not require Senate confirmation, meaning she can hit the ground running on Jan. 20—and she plans to. She’ll be taking over a CDC that has come under fire for caving to political interference and vacillated on guidance and testing guidelines as it struggled to maintain credibility amid the worst public health crisis in a century.

Although Walensky is not an expert in respiratory diseases or coronaviruses  her Twitter bio contains some of the most reassuring words Americans in the midst of a pandemic could see: “Decision science researcher.”

“On January. 20, I will begin leading the CDC, which was founded in 1946 to meet precisely the kinds of challenges posed by this pandemic,” she wrote in a New York Times op-ed. “I agreed to serve as CDC. director because I believe in the agency’s mission and commitment to knowledge, statistics and guidance. I will do so by leading with facts, science and integrity — and being accountable for them, as the CDC. has done since its founding 75 years ago.”

She went on to insist that as CDC Director, “it will be my responsibility to make sure that the public trusts the agency’s guidance and that its staff feels supported.”

When President-elect Biden introduced her, she addressed the challenges facing the US. “The pandemic that brought me here today is one that struck America and the world more than 30 years ago because my medical training happened to coincide with some of the most harrowing years of the HIV/AIDS crisis. As a medical student, I saw firsthand how the virus ravaged bodies and communities. Inside the hospital, I witnessed people lose strength and hope. While outside the hospital, I witnessed those same patients, mostly gay men and members of vulnerable communities, be stigmatized and marginalized by their nation and many of its leaders.

“Now, a new virus is ravaging us. It’s striking hardest, once again, at the most vulnerable, the marginalized, the underserved. I’m honored to work with an administration that understands that leading with science is the only way to deliver breakthroughs, to deliver hope, and to bring our nation back to full strength. To the American people and to each and every one of you at the CDC, I promise to work with you, to harness the power of American science, to fight this virus and prevent unnecessary illness and deaths so that we can all get back to our lives.”

Among the tools she will have that her predecessor did not (for long) are not 1 but 2 vaccines, and possibly more soon. However, in a paper published in Health Affairs in November, Walensky and her co-authors reported on their mathematical simulation of vaccination that showed factors related to implementation “will contribute more to the success of vaccination programs than a vaccine’s efficacy as determined in clinical trials.” The benefits of a vaccine decline substantially, they add, in the event of manufacturing or deployment delays, or greater epidemic severity. Equally important, they note, is the need to address vaccine hesitancy. “Our findings demonstrate the need,” they wrote, “…to redouble efforts to promote public confidence in COVID-19 vaccines, and to encourage continued adherence to other mitigation approaches, even after a vaccine becomes available.”

In a Facebook Live event sponsored by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where Walensky received her MPH degree, she said there are other “substantial challenges” in distributing a coronavirus vaccine, including the fact that one quarter of Americans don’t have a primary care physician to guide their care.

Her appointment has won praise from health experts around the world not only for her extensive scientific background (BS degree in biochemistry and molecular biology from Washington University and a MD degree from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine) and experience but also for her communication skills. She regularly appears on CNN and has more than 50,000 followers on social media.

She will need those communication skills to undo the knot of suspicion and resistance surrounding the COVID vaccines. The year is young, but since January 1st, the 7-day average of deaths has exceeded 2,500 deaths every day and is continuing to rise. Hospitals are running out of room to care for those patients, and the many others with other needs. In 2019, according to the CDC’s latest data, more than 30 million people in the US had no health insurance; thousands of Americans now struggling financially are swelling those numbers.

Walensky definitely has her tasks cut out for her—and those are just the ones we know about now. But Ashish Jha, MD, MPH, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, who is also a renowned public health researcher, has no doubts about her capability. In December, he tweeted: “Running @CDCgov complicated, especially in a crisis. You need to 1. Communicate with the American people, 2. Run a sprawling organization, 3. Understand, effectively use tools of public health. Lots of people can do one of these. No one I know can do all 3 as well as @RWalensky.”