CDC director admits agency failed to 'reliably meet expectations' in COVID response

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still failed to “reliably meet expectations” in addressing the crisis, CDC director says.

Much of the agency’s failure was a direct consequence of decades of congressional inaction, says Julian Zelizer .

Zelizer: By working with Congress , the Trump administration can fix the CDC , reorganizing its structure.

Robert Redfield : Time-consuming travel, Zoom calls, or other online communications will not suffice for the kind of deliberation and debate necessary to forge complex and timely policy responses during a pandemic.

He says the Trump administration should increase the number of non-career or “political” appointees to assist the director in formulating, communicating, and executing agency policies.

The administration should decentralize agency operations to enable better federal-state communication and data sharing, he says.