How to Make the CDC Matter Again

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- For many years, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was known as the world's preeminent public-health agency. No longer. During the pandemic, the CDC stumbled repeatedly. Accused of incompetence, overreach and muddled messaging, it is now in need of repair. Director Rochelle Walensky was right to order a review of the agency's operations in early April. She shouldn't shrink from significant reforms.

To be sure, some of the CDC's troubles have resulted from political interference. Donald Trump's White House sought to undermine the agency by second-guessing its guidance and advice. Political operatives pushed to revise some of its publications and revoked its authority to gather hospital Covid data from the states. Although President Joe Biden has shown greater respect for the CDC's expertise, he has kept White House personnel involved in Covid communications and thereby helped to muddle the message and confuse the public.

It's true, too, that Covid has been inherently bewildering. From the start, researchers have struggled to understand how the virus spreads and how best to hold it at bay. As public-health leaders strained to keep up with changing conditions and emerging bits of evidence — on masks, mutations and more — their updated guidance often came across (fairly or not) as self-contradictory.

But the CDC also made unforced errors. Starting in February of 2020, it distributed faulty and contaminated Covid test kits, which stymied the government's response in the crucial early phases of the pandemic. It was initially slow to share real-time data on Covid's spread with other health agencies, and it waited months after the evidence came in to acknowledge that the coronavirus spreads mainly via airborne particles, not droplets left on surfaces.

At other times, the CDC has seemed to act too abruptly. In December, it suddenly halved the recommended isolation period for people testing positive for Covid — leaving the impression that it was only pushing to get people, especially health-care workers, back on the job.

What changes might prevent such mistakes in the future?

First, a thorough review of laboratory operations is needed. Systems and standards must be improved to prevent the kind of bungling that undermined the first test kits. Federal red tape, which compounded the problem by restricting the use of alternative tests, should be cleared away where possible.

To guard against political meddling, the CDC's Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Report should be made part of the federal statistical system, which includes the National Center for Health Statistics and other agencies that gather and report essential data. Such a designation should guarantee its independence and protect it from further interference.

Next, the agency needs to speed up all disease data collection and report it without delay. Restoring its responsibility for state hospital data collection would help. Agency leaders should also work with state health officials to streamline their efforts and ensure that all states report case and hospital data in a standardized format.

With such reforms in place, it would make sense to put the CDC back solely in charge of public communications about the pandemic. Recall how, during the Ebola scare in 2014 and 2015, the CDC director held regular press briefings to keep Americans informed and answer questions. Doing the same with Covid-19 would help keep people up to date on the virus's spread and informed about the continuing need for vaccines and treatments, booster shots, and other precautionary measures.

Although the CDC lacks the national regulatory powers that its counterparts in other countries have, it can still provide crucial data, expertise and advice to health officials and the public alike. First, though, it needs to rebuild the trust that it had long taken for granted.

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