Showing Editorial results for rochelle walensky. Some felt betrayed by agency leaders who did not speak out publicly against the political interference. So, if Walensky had a Wonder Woman superpower, it was using data to inform decisions and save lives. Dr. Kenneth Freedberg was standing at his wife's bedside in a Boston hospital's intensive care unit when an . Thats something I think will be fixed on Day One, he said. And then some more protection against hospitalization, severe disease, yes. Ive fielded many emails from people who want to know how to get it at the earliest possible moment.. I came directly from a hospital that had a morgue sitting outside, she said in an interview. declined to comment on how the mask recommendations were handled. scientist, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said in April. Back in April, when a huge surge of COVID-19 cases hit, she didn't deny the pain. She is also a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and President-elect Biden has announced that she will be the director of the new CDC. However, we know that the vaccines that are listed on the lefthand part of this slide that are being used in this country namely the Pfizer, Moderna, and the J&J both in lab studies and in clinical effectiveness studies show the effectiveness of these vaccines against the Delta variant, particularly, and importantly, against hospitalization. WALENSKY: The messaging that we're using in terms of protecting older people from COVID but also from other respiratory pathogens - and including influenza and RSV, both of which impact older. WALENSKY: Yeah. CNN Sans & 2016 Cable News Network. MR. ZIENTS: So, lastly, on international travel, you know, weve made, as we talked about today, important progress on the pandemic. But she has emerged as a prominent voice on the pandemic, sometimes criticizing certain aspects of the state and national response. Some surveys and focus groups have shown that many health care workers are hesitant to get the vaccines. And flu cases are exploding. I know thats a hard sell, but I think its a smart sell. FAUCI: Well, with regard to the breakthrough infections that were seeing: So, certainly, we are seeing them, but you got to remember what the denominator of the vaccinated people are. Tens of millions have been infected. And so that's really the goal. Rochelle Paula Walensky ( ne Bersoff; born April 5, 1969) is an American physician-scientist who is the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Dr. Anne Schuchat, the deputy director, and Dr. Nancy Messonnier, who led the agencys infectious disease center have led to speculation about continuing unrest within the agency. WALENSKY: Good morning. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, new head of CDC, got her start at Jewish summer camp. Married to Loren Walensky, also a physician and scientist. Any decision about opening international travel will be guided by our public health and medical experts. And she likens the call she got from the Biden. Walensky declined to give a timeline on Tuesday on when the CDC will release new guidance for schools after publishing information over the weekend suggesting schools should not keep masking policies in place until the end of this school year. Its my responsibility to tell both of those stories.. You don't need to wait for CDC's recommendation, certainly, to wear a mask. We are saying we don't really want people to gather if they're feeling unwell. Its safe, its free, its readily available, and its never been more important.As we manage this virus, our whole-of-government effort continues to work to get more people vaccinated, address areas where were seeing outbreaks among the unvaccinated, and prepare for every scenario.First and foremost, we continue to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of new people each day meeting unvaccinated Americans where they are, answering their questions, helping them make up their mind, and making it even easier and more convenient to get a shot as soon as they are ready to do so.Were doing this by trus- by entrusting and empowering messengers trusted messengers to have the conversations we know work whether its vaccinated people in communities across the country talking directly to their neighbors, sharing their own vaccination journey and answering question; or its Olivia Rodrigo using her voice and platform to spread the word.Were working with doctors, pharmacists, employers, educators, and school administrators to bring vaccines to where people are.And as Dr. Murthy will discuss, were taking disinformation and misinformation head on.We continue to see efforts to deliberately mislead the American people about the importance of vaccination. Health misinformation is false, inaccurate, or misleading information about health according to the best evidence at the time. Today, Dr. Walensky will provide an update on the state of the pandemic and the Delta variant. Dr. Rochelle Walenskys pioneering research has helped advance the national and global response to HIV/AIDS. WALENSKY: The messaging that we're using in terms of protecting older people from COVID but also from other respiratory pathogens - and including influenza and RSV, both of which impact older people with more severity as well - is prevention mechanisms such as flu vaccine and COVID vaccination, really critically important. Even when it's bad news. She saw many people die. Rochelle is married to Loren Walensky, a pediatric oncologist, cancer chemical biologist and director of the Harvard/MIT MD-PhD Program. We have to educate our own work force and answer their questions., He said Walensky struck the right note in her hospitals video when she said that even with the vaccine, we should manage our expectations in terms of taking off our masks.. At the same time, as Dr. Fauci said, because we have so many people fully vaccinated, including about 80 percent of seniors those who are most vulnerable, those over 65 years of age we will likely see smaller increases in hospitalizations, similar to the Israel and UK experience. Dr. Rochelle Walensky likens the call she got from the Biden team, asking her to lead the CDC amid a pandemic, to a hospital alarm that goes off when a patient's heart has stopped. Each COVID-19 death is tragic. Stephenson is an infectious disease specialist and vaccine scientist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. I just was wondering if you guys could share a little bit more detail on the current state of thinking around boosters. Data since the announcement seem to have proved Dr. Walensky correct: Infections are still declining, even as much of the country reopens at a vigorous pace. The C.D.C.s New Leader Follows the Science. Rochelle P. Walensky, MD, MPH, is the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. So the news had special meaning for her and the many jubilant colleagues tweeting their joy. Its a science-based sell, and we have to stick with that, he said. "I want our kids back in camp," Walensky said, describing how her teenage son counts down the days to his summer camp. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. In 2019, she testified before Congress about the prohibitive cost of preventive therapy and treatments for H.I.V. Because when we did not have the large group of elderly people vaccinated, then the elderly people dominated the people who were hospitalized and got into trouble.Since we have more of a veil of protection among people because about 85 percent of people who are elderly, greater than 65 are vaccinated when you look at the relative number of people who get hospitalized, clearly, were seeing younger people, from a relative standpoint, more hospitalized than we were seeing before because of the shift of the veil of protection, which is much more dominant among the elderly.DR. Is it a different sort of strategy? Last week, Biden said he would ask for $160 billion for vaccinations and other public health programs, including an effort to expand the public health workforce by 100,000 jobs. But this time, the Biden transition team named Walensky in advance, so she could take the agencys reins even before her boss is in place. Loren Walensky recalls coming home one day to find her sitting at the kitchen table working on extremely complex math. (Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images), Dr. Rochelle Walensky, who has been selected to serve as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention speaks during an event at The Queen theater in Wilmington, Del., Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2020, to announce President-elect Joe Biden's his health care team. Now, health misinformation has been a problem long before COVID. "Many young people are in this situation, and many, many have it worse.". Accuracy and availability may vary. It was Dr. Fauci, who had known and admired her work on H.I.V., who recommended her. Copyright 2022 NPR. She will work tirelessly to protect & save lives. guidance or in her tone: The viruss hold on the country is loosening, but large parts of the population remain unvaccinated and the pandemic is not yet over. Why a Covid-19 vaccine doesn't mean that you can stop wearing a mask. As for the president, whose own life has been marked by family tragedies, Biden has often referenced his own losses in relating to Americans dealing with the pandemic's hardships. But Dr. Fauci said that he believed some small missteps were inevitable, and that Dr. Walensky was a quick study. He studies and treats children's blood cancers at Boston Children's Hospital and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. In selecting @RWalensky, Biden has chosen one of the most respected infectious disease docs in the world. Dr. William Schaffner, a longtime adviser to the CDC on vaccines, said Walensky, a practicing infectious disease specialist, is well positioned to encourage health care professionals to take the shot. President Biden had promised that the C.D.C. So does that mean were not going to see full approval for their vaccine until January 2022? And are we seeing any breakthrough infections among more vulnerable people who have been vaccinated who might have been around younger people? And as Dr. Walensky and Dr. Fauci have said theyve made it very clear this is a question that they are continually evaluating. Were going to have to really seriously address these myths that are floating around, and Im not even sure how to start to do that, she added. What are you and your family doing? He also recommended a review of the CDC to determine if the agencys problems can be traced to mismanagement by Trumps political appointees or whether there are deeper flaws in the organization. She has been selected to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the Biden . "It was so baffling," she says. An overwhelming majority of its scientists, and particularly those in management positions, are white. This year, it got to zero and I told him he wasn't going.". But many felt the agency had rushed the decision to end mask use without considering parts of the country where infections were still high, and without grasping the mistrust and culture clashes the new advice would engender. WALENSKY: So we're going back to a lot of the trusted messengers, back to the community, making sure that those vaccines are available, working with our long-term care facilities, working with the community, doing education, working with the hospital community, the medical community to really reiterate the importance of these vaccines as well as to demonstrate the data of how well these vaccines are working. Despite a grueling workload of patient care and research, Dr. Walensky made it to her sons piano concerts, karate tournaments and half marathons, according to her husband. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Copyright 2021, Pinoria.com. Importantly, these painful experiences and the impact of COVID-19 are felt, most . Back to you, Jeff. And while those threats have often been related to what we eat, drink, and smoke, today we live in a world where misinformation poses an urgent and insidious threat to our nations health. Or is it mainly unvaccinated people that thats happening since this is, as Walensky phrased it, a pandemic of the unvaccinated.And secondly, Pfizer just announced that the FDA has granted a priority review designation for their application for approval of their vaccine. The task falls to Dr. Rochelle Walensky, 51, an infectious-diseases specialist at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, who is expected to become CDC director this week a time when the viruss U.S. death toll has eclipsed 400,000 and continues to accelerate. Rochelle Walensky Family | Ethnicity She was born in Peabody, Massachusetts, to her parents. When the pandemic began, Dr. Walensky, 52, was chief of the infectious diseases division at Massachusetts General Hospital. And then, if there's a large gathering, consider wearing a mask. ZIENTS: And, Kaitlan, on the second question, well defer to the FDA. Neither he nor his parents -- my wife and I -- are sure how long this will last," Slavitt continued, speaking of the younger of his two sons. director, is working to restore trust in what once was the worlds premier public health agency.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times. An error occurred. Her leadership of the C.D.C. So, just curious if you can offer any additional color.MR. Our seven-day average is about 26,300 cases per day, and this represents an increase of nearly 70 percent from the prior seven-day average.The seven-day average of hospital admissions is about 2,790 per day an increase of about 36 percent from the previous seven-day period. CHANG: I will. CHANG: I mean, why isn't the CDC more strongly recommending masking in public places right now, during this so-called tripledemic? Stan Grossfeld/The Boston Globe, via Getty Images. And please do it to protect your young children who, right now, cant get vaccinated themselves. She is involved in a medical discussion on the best strategy to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and achieve herd immunity. She is married to Loren D. Walensky and they have 3 children. But if you are beyond that window, I want to reiterate: There is no bad time to get your second shot.Do it for yourself, your family, and for your community. Theres a lot that we are doing and well continue to do more, but this is a moment where we need technology companies to step up and do more to stop the spread of misinformation. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 3 million kids under 17 have contracted COVID-19, Slavitt said, "and even though it's rare for kids to get severely ill from COVID-19, it can happen.". "Every year, he comes home from camp and he writes the number of days until he returns to camp the next year. "I got called during a code," she says. expert at the hospital who was first her mentor, then a collaborator. She ordered the hospital staff to wear masks before it became the national norm, and advised the mayor of her town and the governor on testing and prevention of Covid-19. White House officials also took steps to try to control the CDCs scientific reports and the guidance on its website. And so why its so important for yourself, your family, and your community to get vaccinated. Susan Walsh/AP DR. WALENSKY: Yeah, absolutely. The CDC has been sidelined, has been maligned, has been a punching bag for many politicians in the outgoing administration. director, is working to restore trust in what once was the worlds premier public health agency. It was that sometimes it felt like sabotage. ZIENTS: Please.SURGEON GENERAL MURTHY: on thought there? Walensky is an expert on AIDS and HIV. Rochelle holds an American nationality and belongs to the white ethnicity. The entire country was in a high level of transmission. The science, as always, will guide us. And then, a few years later, she saw the advent of HIV treatments that could save patients if those patients could get access to testing and care. Please enable JavaScript to use this feature. While the agency has retained some of its top scientific talent, public health experts say, it has a long list of needs, including new protection from political influence, a comprehensive review of its missteps during the pandemic and more money to beef up basic functions like disease tracking and genetic analysis. "At one point, one of my sons said, 'You know, Dad, we should just open a florist shop at this point," says Rochelle Walensky's husband, Dr. Loren Walensky. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the C.D.C. C.D.C. 'I know what its like when you are there, holding their hands, as they look in your eye and they slip away. The respiratory virus RSV has been surging for weeks, sending kids to emergency rooms. Rochelle Walensky is the daughter of Edward Bersoff and Carol Bersoff-Bernstein. Next slide. Lets go to Zeke Miller with AP. Please try again later. Get to know Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Biden's CDC director pick. is a large and lumbering agency, bogged down by bureaucracy and hampered by what some experts describe as an overly cautious approach. In 2008 she won the Emerging Leader in HIV Research sponsored by the HIV Medical Association and the Infectious Disease Society of America. "I got called during a code," she says. How does it change the strategy going forward?MR. director. By the end of one year, everybodys going to be raving about her. The nurses survey was done in the first half of October, before data came out from Pfizer and Modernas large-scale clinical trials showing that the vaccines had no serious safety concerns and were 95% effective. Both vaccines are most effective two weeks after the second dose, with each exceeding 90 percent effectiveness against severe disease, hospitalization, and death in real-world studies. And if needed, well ensure Americans who might need a booster shot are able to get one quickly and easily. In early December, Dr. Katy Stephenson was watching TV with her family and scrolling through Twitter when she saw a tweet that made her shout. You feel healthy, you know people who have had COVID and are doing all right. Born Rochelle Bersoff, Dr. Walensky grew up in Potomac, Md. Some of its advice had been twisted by the Trump administration, and her message was clear: The C.D.C. If you look at the average daily prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant worldwide, if you look at the righthand part of the slide, you see the extraordinary surge in the dominance of this variant worldwide. CHANG: Well, turning to RSV, what do you see happening with those infections? Rochelle is 6 feet tall. Over the next few months, Bernstein spent hours and hours in meetings with CDC officials, including agency Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, and then more time preparing presentations on education . They were both Jewish, and shared a deep interest in medicine and music she played the flute and he was a classical pianist. Unvaccinated Americans account for virtually all recent COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths. If we want to address health misinformation, well need an all-of-society response, and thats why the advisory has recommendations for everyone. Not completing the series puts those partially vaccinated at risk of illness. Why isn't the CDC putting out more forceful messaging about protecting older people from COVID this season? She has been nominated by President-elect Joe Biden as the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. FAUCI: Thank you very much, Dr. Walensky. Contact: Media Relations. COVID response adviser Andy Slavitt said his son has symptoms 6 months later. For Immediate Release: Friday, June 4, 2021. Please.DR. The incoming director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is telling her family theyll be wearing masks well into next year. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, speaks at a coronavirus briefing in December 2020. Sign up here to get The Results Are In with Dr. Sanjay Gupta every Tuesday from the CNN Health team. There are two things happening at the same time, she said. Yes, we actually reported on that. Q Thank you all for doing this. Washington CNN Since the early days of her time as Director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Rochelle Walensky has made comments and claims over Covid-19 guidance. Dr. Rochelle Wallinski is the daughter of Carol Bersov Bernstein and Edward H. Bersov, the former chair of the Department of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital. Pick Up The Best Face Serums For Oily Skin. Post-Workout Nutrition Advice to Make the Most of Your Sweat Session! And that has had a detrimental effect on the agencys ability to fulfill its mission, said Dr. Richard Besser, a former CDC official who now heads the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. It allowed people who intentionally spread misinformation what we call disinformation to have extraordinary reach.In this advisory, were telling technology companies that we expect more. However, if you look at the trend on the far righthand part of that slide, theres that uptick, which somehow was reflecting what Dr. Walensky just told you about the slight uptick that were seeing in hospitalizations in our own country. This is amazing!' I guarantee it.. And so, if youve got people in your life who trust you, who look to you for advice, then you have the power to help them get them accurate information and help get them vaccinated and protected from COVID-19. Go present to your physician for other tests like for RSV or influenza. Thank you, Zeke. Rochelle is married to Loren Walensky, a pediatric oncologist, cancer chemical biologist and director of the Harvard/MIT MD-PhD Program. 2023 Cable News Network. ", Biden Names Massachusetts Doctor To Lead CDC, HHS Spokesperson Takes Leave of Absence After Disparaging Government Scientists, House Oversight Committee Chair: Testimony Points To Political Interference At CDC, Coronavirus Vaccine Q&A: Variants, Side Effects, And More, CDC Offers Clearest Guidance Yet For Reopening Schools, If Schools Follow CDC Guidance, Biden's Reopening Goals Could Be Hard To Reach, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Surgeon General Advisories are reserved for urgent public health threats. Walensky has said one of her top priorities will be to improve the CDCs communications with the public to rebuild trust. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. 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