Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, resigned from her position on Friday, citing the waning of the COVID-19 pandemic as a good opportunity to begin a transition of power.
Walensky’s resignation comes after the World Health Organization announced on Friday that it was downgrading the coronavirus from a global emergency.
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President Joe Biden issued a statement following Walensky’s resignation announcement.
“Dr. Walensky has saved lives with her steadfast and unwavering focus on the health of every American. As Director of the CDC, she led a complex organization on the frontlines of a once-in-a-generation pandemic with honesty and integrity,” Biden said. “She marshalled our finest scientists and public health experts to turn the tide on the urgent crises we’ve faced.”
“Dr. Walensky leaves CDC a stronger institution, better positioned to confront health threats and protect Americans. We have all benefited from her service and dedication to public health, and I wish her the best in her next chapter,” the president continued.
Walensky, 54, served as CDC director for a little over two years. Her last day will be June 30. An interim director has not yet been named, and she sent her resignation to Biden in a letter.
In the letter, she expressed “mixed feelings” about the decision and didn’t say exactly why she was stepping down. However, she said the United States is in a state of transition as the emergency declarations come to an end. Biden said he will not be renewing the public health emergency, which is set to expire on May 11, and he ended the COVID-19 national emergency on April 10.
“I have never been prouder of anything I have done in my professional career,” Walensky wrote in the letter, according to the Associated Press.
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Walensky served as an infectious disease specialist at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. She had no experience running a governmental health agency until being sworn in as the CDC’s director in 2021.
Her tenure during the pandemic had its ups and downs. Walensky said in spring 2021 that fully vaccinated people could stop wearing masks in many spaces, but reversed course as the new delta variant began to spread across the nation. In December 2021, the CDC also released new guidelines, shortening isolation and quarantine time frames, which caught many people by surprise.
