On Wednesday, Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, admonished the agency’s COVID-19 pandemic response after reviewing the findings of a monthlong review in April. The review was requested by the director after continuous criticism by the public – including groups representing people living with COVID bereavement, Long COVID, disabilities, and more – of the agency’s unclear and nonsensical recommendations.
The ongoing and notable failures by the CDC have been called out regularly by Kristin Urquiza, co-founder of Marked By COVID and the nation’s top disaster equity advocate, over the past 2+ years and have gone unheard for far too long. Now that the CDC has acknowledged the botched response, it is time for those who first identified the problems to have a seat at the problem-solving table and to conduct an independent investigation to ensure true accountability.
Kristin Urquiza, co-Founder of Marked By COVID released the following statement:
“The CDC director’s admission of failure and call to reorganize the agency to focus on action is long overdue. Along with countless experts and impacted community members, I’ve been begging CDC for urgent action to fulfill public health needs and prevent and control the spread of the disease for years… from national TV interviews to conversations directly with high-level HHS and White House staff. The cost of inaction has been over 1 million people in the U.S. dead, including my dad, Mark Urquiza, with millions more grieving, tens of millions of people suffering from Long COVID, and 500+ people currently dying daily.
The CDC itself reports that when Dr. Walensky began her post as Director on January 20, 2021, there were 424,335 documented deaths to Covid in the U.S. As of August 16, 2022, this number had more than doubled to a staggering 1,033,332 documented Covid deaths, most of them preventable.
Just as we don’t allow students to grade themselves, Dr. Walensky cannot be allowed to assess her own work. Her unsubstantiated attempts to blame slow data and CDC staffers demonstrate that she is incapable of objective review, as the true problem has repeatedly been identified as “confusing & overwhelming’ guidance” and the fact that “messages on masking & other mitigation[s] were sometimes so confusing or abruptly modified that they seemed more like internal drafts than carefully considered proclamations.
The failure to communicate clearly lies within Walensky’s own purview. Her poor messaging skills – and the tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars dedicated to improving them – are undeniable.
We absolutely need a full accounting of our failed pandemic response. But Walensky has a tremendous conflict of interest in the outcome of this investigation, and – like a judge who stands to benefit from a particular outcome – must recuse herself from this process.
The impossibility of the fox truly guarding the henhouse is just one of the many reasons Marked By COVID has been publicly leading the push for an independent federal commission to investigate the government’s failure to adequately respond to COVID-19 since 2020. Only an independent probe and comprehensive agency overhaul – that includes input directly from the people who first identified the problems and fought to bring them to light – will prevent further suffering and death during this and future pandemics.
Those who have lost loved ones to COVID-19 need to be included in pandemic prevention conversations to fully understand the wrath of pandemic loss. We can no longer afford to have the leaders who failed us decide how and where they failed us. They need to heed the advice of the experts, including the COVID-bereaved, people living with Long COVID, and public health professionals who have been begging for better for far too long.”
Marked By COVID is a national, grassroots-powered 501(c)4 nonprofit organization that promotes accountability, recognition, justice, and a pandemic-free future by elevating truth and science. Kristin Urquiza co-founded MBC days after her first-generation Mexican-American father, Mark, passed away from the virus.
