Even when the news is bleak.
 | By Jyoti Thottam Deputy Op-Ed Editor |
One of the most important sources for any journalist who writes about public health is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. |
It’s a model of what public health can do. American public health officials began publishing what eventually became known as the M.M.W.R. in 1878, gathering information on unusual illnesses or clusters of illnesses and making that information available to the public. |
Perhaps the most famous single issue was published on June 5, 1981, a report of five cases of pneumocystis carinii pneumonia among previously healthy young men in Los Angeles. That report, from doctors and public health officials in the area, is now acknowledged as the first clinical record of the AIDS epidemic. |
Reports of an emerging virus in Wuhan, China, first appeared in the report in February 2020, when 11 cases of Covid-19 had been recorded in the United States. In September, the M.M.W.R. itself became news when my colleagues at the Times reported that Trump administration officials attempted to control its contents. The House of Representatives is now investigating. |
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the chief of the infectious diseases division at Massachusetts General Hospital who has been on the front lines of fighting the pandemic for months, dealing with both the illness and Americans’ eroded trust in its public health authorities, found these reports of interference disturbing. |
Now Dr. Walensky is in a position to do something about it. Joe Biden named her as the new director of the C.D.C., and she will assume leadership of the agency after his inauguration. |
In her essay this morning, Dr. Walensky acknowledges that the C.D.C. has a long way to go in rebuilding its reputation, with the public and with its own staff. “Restoring the public’s trust in the C.D.C. is crucial,” she writes. And she has made a commitment to begin a review of all the existing C.D.C. guidance on Covid-19 to make sure it is based on evidence and free from interference. |
As she takes office, her agency will have to guide America through a surge in new cases and the complicated distribution of vaccines. The C.D.C. won’t be able to do that without trust; I encourage you to read more here about how Dr. Walensky plans to earn it. |
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