The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are both suffering staff shortages, according to Dr. Marty Makary, a top public-health specialist at Johns Hopkins University, writes at Common Sense, the Substack run by former New York Times columnist, Bari Weiss.
Major choices made by the agencies that hurt morale included support for masking in schools, school closures throughout the pandemic, and the authorization of COVID-19 vaccines for children four and under.
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Both agencies, along with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have been mired in controversy during the pandemic for inconsistent messaging and for decision-making that didn't appear to line up with available science.
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"They have no leadership right now. Suddenly, there's an enormous number of jobs opening up at the highest level positions," an anonymous NIH scientist explained to Common Sense.
Schools became a battleground of the COVID-19 pandemic in America.
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When the virus wrecked the world in 2020, many officials immediately shut things down - schools, retail stores, entertainment venues, restaurants - out of a fear of the unknown.
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Initial data revealed children suffered limited risk when they contracted the virus, though, and that it was mainly the elderly and severely immunocompromised that bore the virus's burden.
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Despite the proof, the CDC still suggested schools stay closed until the end of the 2019-2020 school year.
While individual school districts were permitted to make decisions for themselves - and many Republican-leaning counties did quickly reopen schools - many significant metropolitan areas under Democratic control kept schools closed for extended periods.
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Earlier this year, Makary told DailyMail.com that the decision to keep schools closed was one of the worst made in the pandemic, specifically citing that minority communities who disproportionately lived in these areas were set the furthest behind academically.
"CDC failed to balance the risks of COVID with other risks that come from closing schools," an anonymous CDC scientist told Common Sense.
"Learning loss, mental health exacerbations were obvious early on and worsened as the guidance insisted on keeping schools virtual. CDC guidance worsened racial equity for generations to come. It failed this generation of children."
When schools did reopen, many asked children to stay masked at all times outside of lunch periods, obeying guidance from the CDC.
COVID tsar Dr. Anthony Fauci repeatedly warned that lifting mask mandates from children was "risky," while simultaneously saying it was time to return to normal. That was in February.
On July 13, Fauci flip-flopped again, suggesting that masks still be work in indoor public gatherings while telling Americans they shouldn't let the BA.5 COVID-19 variant "disrupt our lives."
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