Outgoing CDC director Rochelle Walensky, MD, defended the actions and credibility of the agency and called on Congress for additional support as she testified June 13 before the U.S. House Oversight Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic — just 17 days before she exits the role.
Subcommittee chair Rep. Brad Wenstrup, DPM, R-Ohio, opened the hearing criticizing the CDC and Dr. Walensky's role in what he stated was "contradicting" guidance given to the public throughout the pandemic.
"Unfortunately, in many ways, our public health leadership does not always rise to the occasion," Dr. Wenstrup said in his opening remarks to Dr. Walensky. "Instead of being a calm and trusted voice of science and reason, the American people often felt let down, often deceived and left damaged."
Dr. Walensky emphasized the CDC's efforts to get important public health information out as quickly and as accurately as possible throughout the pandemic and acknowledged that emerging data and growing scientific evidence can present differing interpretations at first, but often as a body of research on a topic grows there is more support and guidance that comes in line with the evidence.
"Throughout my tenure as CDC director I used the best available and often emerging data to inform real time policy decisions," Dr. Walensky said. "Rarely did we see new scientific findings that were immediately and unanimously clear and consistent, but at the CDC we have a strong commitment to acting quickly with transparency when new science gives us better ways to protect the public health needs of our most vulnerable."
She pointed to the CDC's success in leading the administration of 676 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to the American public, navigating a path to re-open schools and other related efforts that she noted contributed to saving millions of lives.
Dr. Walensky also acknowledged that there is still work to be done and improvements to be made, specifically in the area of technology and response.
She said use of fax machines to get information to the CDC is one thing that has to significantly change and be replaced with fast, secure data highways.
"We need resources for data highways, so that those resources are going out to the 3,000 jurisdictions reporting data to us. If those data highways are flowing, then we can actually receive the data and give it back," she said. "So then County A knows what's happening next door in County B."
Dr. Walensky also said because the CDC does not have the authority to demand data and much of what it works from is voluntarily given, that to aid future efforts, congressional support for "data authorities" would help the CDC "intentionally put resources where they are needed."
Looking ahead to future emerging threats, she also touched on the need for workforce support for the healthcare sector.
She said the CDC is becoming a more agile streamlined agency that can more effectively respond to a future health threat, but that in some areas, like data collection and bolstering public health, the agency requires support from Congress.
"We are gifted to have an agency that works 24/7 to protect Americans. We have people who were rappelling out of helicopters to drop test kits onto the Diamond Princess. We have people who have gone door to door in Ohio during the train derailment for hours on end. We have people working in Ebola treatment centers, doing infection control, and they are now seeing the vitriol splashed across the pages of the work that they are doing," Dr. Walensky said, touching on how many working in the public health sector and healthcare workforce have faced increasing violence and threats since COVID-19 began.
"We do all of those activities through releasing science, and when they are undermined, you see risks to their lives," she said. "You see people leaving? I think there's an estimate that about half of public health workers across this country have left the field because they've been threatened. That does not help public health investments going forward."