“I did what I came to do — which was get us through the darkest days of a pandemic.” The outgoing head of the CDC said her reasons for stepping down were complex, driven in part by desire to take a break from the intense pace of the job during a pandemic.
“That wasn’t the straw that broke the camel’s back,” she emphasized. But it also wasn’t something she expected when she took the job — her first time running a government public health agency.
There were also a variety of other outbreaks and crises, including an unexpected mpox outbreak last year. At CDC, she has taken fire, mainly — but not only — from Republican legislators and critics of vaccination and masking campaigns. That was on display last week, when a GOP-led congressional subcommittee questioned and criticized Walensky about her tenure and accused her of misleading the public.
Walensky herself has acknowledged problems during her tenure. One example: In the spring of 2021, early in her tenure, Walensky said fully vaccinated people could stop wearing masks in many settings, only to reverse course as the then-new delta variant spread.
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