
Incoming CDC Director to Prioritize Communication, COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout
As Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH, prepares to assume the role of CDC director on January 20, the infectious disease specialist faces a myriad of challenges wrought by the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
As Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH, prepares to assume the role of CDC director on January 20, the former professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and infectious disease physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham Women’s Hospital faces a myriad of challenges wrought by the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
January 21st marks the
Even at the unprecedented speed with which pharmaceutical companies have developed vaccines for COVID-19, rollout has been fragmented at the state level while
In an effort to improve the national rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, Walensky plans to increase the CDC’s communication to combat any
“Science is now conveyed through Twitter. Science is conveyed on social media, on podcasts, and in many different ways. And I think that's critical,” Walensky said during a livestreamed interview with JAMA's Howard Bauchner, MD, the journal's editor-in-chief. When confronting vaccine hesitancy or anti-vaxxer sentiment on social media, “There's just this massive void and the right information, I think, is not getting out there… I want to make sure that the science is conveyed. We have to say it to one another. We have to say it to the public. And then we have to say it in other forms.”
Internally, Walensky hopes to bolster the voices of scientists already employed by the CDC. Under the Trump presidency, “they have been diminished. I think they've been muzzled,” Walensky said. “This top tier agency—world renowned—hasn't really been appreciated over the last 4 years, and really markedly over the last year. So I have to fix that.”
Although some states have been
“Part of the challenge with COVID-19 was that we had a frail public health infrastructure to start. It wasn't ready to tackle what it was given,” Walensky said. As director, she hopes to bring this reality to Congress’ attention. “We're in this because we had warnings for many, many other public health scares in the last 20 years and we didn't fix our public health infrastructure and our data infrastructure,” in response to those tests.
In order to meet President-elect Biden’s goal of 100 million vaccinations in 100 days, the constraints currently faced by federal and state governments need to be mitigated. “We have to titrate our supply and our eligibility so that we somehow hit the sweet spot, wherever it is we are, with how much supply we have and how many people are eligible,” Walensky said.
While the CDC set the initial guidelines for vaccine eligibility and
Expanding the population of those eligible to administer the vaccine can also help alleviate these roadblocks. These individuals can include retirees, the
Increasing both the number of vaccination sites and vaccinators will also help address the
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