CDC Director Rochelle Walensky Resigns Citing Waning Pandemic

Breitbart: Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has resigned. The waning of the coronavirus pandemic was cited Friday as the reason for her departure.

Walensky’s last day will be June 30, CDC officials said. AP reports she sent a resignation letter directly to President Joe Biden and later told her own staff at a special meeting.

President-elect Biden appointed her as CDC director in December 2020, just before the first coronavirus vaccines were rolled out in the U.S.

🚨 BREAKING: CDC director Rochelle Walensky to step down. pic.twitter.com/y6OuS5dRKD

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) May 5, 2023

In her letter to the president, she reportedly expressed “mixed feelings” about the decision and gave no specific reason for walking away, other than offering that the nation is at a moment of transition as emergency declarations come to an end around the world.

“I have never been prouder of anything I have done in my professional career,” she wrote.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said Friday coronavirus no longer qualifies as a global emergency, and the U.S. public health emergency declaration will expire next week, as Breitbart News reported.

The spread of coronavirus “is no longer an unusual or unexpected event” and “the world has made significant and impressive global progress since the declaration of the PHEIC in January 2020,” allowing for a change in approach to the disease, the W.H.O. declared.

Rats flee sinking ship.
CDC director Rochelle Walensky is stepping down. pic.twitter.com/Pa7jbU6Uyc

— David Vance (@DVATW) May 5, 2023

Deaths in the U.S. are at their lowest point since the earliest days of the coronavirus outbreak in early 2020, the AP report sets out.

The CDC, with a $12 billion budget and more than 12,000 employees, is an Atlanta-based federal agency charged with protecting Americans from disease outbreaks and other public health threats.

No replacement for Walensky has been announced.