Coronavirus
Inside the agency, a race is taking place. Can it stop the spread of Covid-19 before its staff wears out from exhaustion?
Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, testifies before a Senate HELP Committee hearing to examine the federal response to Covid-19 and new emerging variants on Tuesday. | Shawn Thew/Pool via AP
By ERIN BANCO
01/15/2022 07:00 AM EST
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In an early December call, Rochelle Walensky, director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, greeted a weary staff facing an ominous new chapter in the pandemic response.
The Omicron variant was spreading rapidly, she said, leading to increases in cases and hospitalizations — an indication that the U.S. was in for another difficult winter. And employees of the agency’s pandemic response team, some of whom have worked on the CDC’s Covid-19 efforts since January 2020, had reached their breaking point.
For more than a year, CDC scientists and officials have reported extreme burnout and the virus pushed them to complete investigations quicker than ever. In the all-hands meeting, Walensky delivered a sobering message to her employees: the workload was about to ramp up again. She urged CDC individuals who had not served on the response to step up to help.
