CDC director leaving the agency

Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is leaving the agency at the end of June, according to a White House announcement.

Walenksy: ©CDC

"The end of the COVID-19 public health emergency marks a tremendous transition for our country, for public health, and in my tenure as CDC Director," Walensky said in a statement, noting that her goal was to leave behind the dark days of the pandemic and moving the CDC and public health forward into a more trusted place.

"In the process, we saved and improved lives and protected the country and the world from the greatest infectious disease threat we have seen in over 100 years," Walensky said in her statement.

President Joe Biden said: “She led a complex organization on the frontlines of a once-in-a-generation pandemic with honesty and integrity. Dr. Walensky leaves CDC a stronger institution, better positioned to confront health threats and protect Americans."

Walensky, who led the CDC through the pandemic, previously acknowledged the agency did not live up to expectations, saying that for 75 years the agency prepared for a pandemic but that its performance did not reliably meet expectations.

Walensky took over the agency in early 2021.

Prior to leading the CDC, she led the infectious disease division at Massachusetts General Hospital and was a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.