Can Biden's CDC Rehab Its Reputation?

COVID nineteen in a large, late stage trial. The news raises hope that it can rapidly reshape a stumbling immunization campaign. In a statement today, the company said that while the vaccine was shown to prevent six of moderate to severe cases of COVID nineteen, it was particularly effective at keeping people from getting severely ill. The shot also prevented one of hospitalizations and deaths. J and J will deliver about two million doses of its COVID nineteen vaccine when it

receives an emergency use authorization in the US. That's according to a government accountability report published yesterday. J and J plans to file with the U S Food and Drug Administration for that authorization next week. The European Union's Drug Regulator cleared a COVID nineteen vaccine from Astra Zenica and the University of Oxford for all adults today. A shortfall and expected deliveries has raised tensions between the company and

the block. The Astra Oxford vaccine will be the third available in the EU after shots from Fiser and modern Up, and it could help alleviate the shortage of shots in the region. The EU currently trails the UK and the US in vaccinations. Finally, the spread of a new UK strain of COVID nineteen stabilized or fell in most British regions, with the country under a severe lockdown. That's even as

overall caseloads remained high. The news suggests the UK's restrictions have helped arrest transmission of a strain officials have warned is more deadly and easier to spread. And now for today's main story for SHELL, Will Lensky, the new leader of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, faces two difficult missions at the same time, leading the agency's COVID nineteen response and trying to restore the agency's stature post Trump, I spoke with John Tazzi about the job ahead for

Wilenski and how she plans to achieve it. President Biden recently tapped Dr Rochelle Wilenski to be the new leader of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. I'm just wondering, you know, what do we know about her? What's her background? Sure? Rachelle Wilenski is most recently was chief of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital, prestigious hospital in Boston. She's a professor at Harvard and basically has spent a career in

infectious disease care and research. She's done a lot of work on HIV and AIDS and has advised national and international organizations on HIV policy. UM So she's a well respected and high profile infectious disease for position. And you know, before going to c DC, she was actually treating patients with COVID nineteen in in the hospital over the past year. You know, what were some of the factors that led

the Biden administration to select her for this role. Yeah, it's an interesting choice because she's not someone who's had um, you know, leadership roles in public health before. Um you know, she hasn't run a city or state Health Department. She hasn't worked at c d C, but we know from reporting that she came highly recommended by a number of people, including Dr Anthony Faucci, who, um, you know, it's obviously a Biden advisor and top infectious disease official in the US.

So I think you know, from from what we've heard, that fact she's sort of endorsement of Wilenski was an important part of um, you know how she was chosen for this position. You know, Dr Wilenski is stepping into the leadership of this agency at a very troubling time. You know, what are some of the big challenges and issues she's going to be facing in her first few

weeks in the role. Yeah, I think it's really twofold. First, there's obviously the COVID nineteen pandemic and trying to jump into the US response, uh and really shift the response in a different direction with a greater role for the federal government under the Biden administration. Part of what face confronting is new variants of the virus that are emerging

that the CDC is trying to monitor and understand. She's also facing the vaccine rollout, you know, so all these sort of things in progress UM operationally that the CDC has to respond to the second part of it, UM, which is maybe as challenging or more, is that the CDC as an institution has really been diminished over the past year. They were often not at the kind of

forefront of the public response in the Trump administration. Their briefings basically ceased very early into the pandemic in the US, you know, and there was a lot of reporting about how really political considerations interfered with their operations, and I think so there's been a sort of a crisis of um credibility of just visibility really at the c d C, where this you know, renowned institution worldwide for public health sort of suffered in some ways during during the response

to the pandemic that was so severe in the US. We should also mention that, you know, the CDC did make some mistakes in in the response UM, you know, and most notably very early on, there were problems with the test kids used to detect the coronavirus in the

US that sort of blind decided the whole country. We didn't have enough testing early on to understand how the virus was spread, and you know, some people we talked to, including the former director of the CDC under President Obama, have called for, you know, an assessment and accounting for what happened and how that happened. So has Dr Lensky given an indication about how she might go about trying to get this agency's reputation, particularly with regard to COVID

nineteen and the rollout in the US. How can she get the CDC back on track. I think what she has said, and you know, it's consistent with what the Biden administration has said broadly, is that they're going to let, you know, let the science and the facts speak and kind of be able to showcase the work of the career scientists at CDC um to make sure that those folks and their research are getting to the public, that federal messaging around the c d C S guidance is

prominent and clear. And you know, one of the first things she did on the day she took office when Biden was inaugurated, was to order a review of existing CDC guidance on COVID nineteen and to sort of assess what the agency has put out already and you know, revise it if if appropriate. So you know, that's UM.

I think it's it's too early to kind of have a good sense of exactly what changes we might see, but one of them certainly is, UM, you know, just a higher profile for for the agency broadly and going forward with that, you know, under the Biden administration, what will be or what can we expect to see as far as the CDC in terms of perhaps new roles or responsibilities that might differ from what we saw the

agency doing under say, the Trump administration. Yeah, it's a good question, UM, and I think you know, a big part of it will be that kind of broader public profile for the agency, for the director for career scientists. You know, there are some specific things that Biden has indicated he wants the CDC to do in the COVID

National Strategy that the President released early on. You know, it's supposed to help expand testing with a sort of testing support teams that will work in schools and potentially other settings. It's going to create a testing plan for

the federal workforce. It's going to kind of update its guidance and UM help you know, different UH stakeholders in industry or in you know, states or other communities really be able to monitor the spread of COVID and kind of understand when you know, how to spawned if the virus is increasing or kind of really metrics driven guidance

is what they've focused. I think there's also, you know, a big equity component that the agency is taking on in terms of addressing COVID's impact in communities of color or invulnerable communities, and particularly with the vaccine roll out um you know, making sure that those communities are being considered and being reached. So, you know, there's a lot on the agency's plate. I think it's still pretty early to understand exactly what role it will take further along

in the Biden administration. That was John Tozzi, and that's it for our show today. For coverage of the outbreak from one bureaus around the world, visit Bloomberg dot com slash coronavirus and if you like the show, please leave us a review and a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It's the best way to help more listeners find our global recording. The Prognosis Daily edition is produced by Top foreheads Magnus Henrickson and me Laura Carlson. Today's main story

was reported by John Tozzi. Original music by Leo Sidrin. Our editors are Rick Shine and Francesco Levi. Francesco Levi is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Thanks for listening.