Former CDC Head Dr. Rochelle Walensky Speaks On Nantucket

Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Rochelle Walensky visited Nantucket last week, giving a talk at the Unitarian Church on Friday evening. The talk was hosted by Shirat HaYam, Nantucket’s Jewish congregation.

During the talk, Walensky discussed the possibility of a future pandemic, President Donald Trump’s cuts to public health funding, and what’s next for the CDC, among other topics.

Walensky was the director of the CDC from former President Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021 until 2023, when the administration decided to end the national emergency status for the COVID-19 pandemic. During her tenure, she oversaw the CDC’s response to COVID-19 during the period when the pandemic caused the greatest number of deaths and confirmed infections.

“It is not about if, it is about when,” Walensky said about the possibility of another pandemic. “I don’t necessarily think we need to wait for [artificial intelligence]. H5N1 has been knocking on the door, and we are at risk of other things, just with international travel and human interface and many other things.”

To prepare for the next pandemic, Walensky said the country needs better laboratories, better data and communication, and more public health professionals.

At the talk on Friday, Walensky criticized the Trump administration for slashing funding to public health initiatives, both in the United States and abroad, saying that the cuts increase the risk of a serious pandemic in the future, undermine faith in medicine and the United States, and imperil the future of scientific research.

“I think we are going to see the loss of a generation of scientists,” Walensky said. “This used to be the place to come, and now, it is not only the place that people can’t come, but they can’t get funding if they do.”

Prior to her appointment to the CDC, Walensky was the chief of the division of infectious diseases at Mass General Brigham and a member of the hospital’s board of directors. She was also an experienced researcher and considered an expert on HIV policy. Since resigning from the CDC, she has lectured at Harvard.

Walensky also fielded a question on new CDC director Erica Schwartz.

“I think Dr. Schwartz is probably as good as the CDC could hope to get in a director, just in terms of her pedigree and what she stands for,” Walensky said. “None of us know or understand what’s going on there. Even the headlines—in fact, I would say especially the headlines—don’t reflect what is happening.”