Performance Review: Evaluating the CDC in the Wake of the COVID Pandemic

Rochelle Walensky, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said, “For 75 years, CDC and public health have been preparing for COVID-19, and in our big moment, our performance did not reliably meet expectations.” She announced plans to “reset” the agency by restructuring its communications team, changing its organizational structure, and emphasizing applied rather than academic scientific research.

Where did the CDC fail, and where did it succeed in responding to the COVID pandemic? Did the agency’s leadership suffer from politicization and groupthink? Is the Director’s proposed “reset” enough of a reform? Are there other systematic agency failures that reformers should remedy? Joining us to discuss these and other questions are Martin A. Makary, MD, MPH, Professor of Surgery at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health; Ari N. Schulman, editor of The New Atlantis, and The New Atlantis Books; and Ronald A. Bailey, science correspondent for Reason Magazine and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. The discussion will be moderated by Cato Institute senior fellow Jeffrey A. Singer, MD.