Public health purge at the CDC sees 3,000 staff who were hired during the Covid crisis laid off

More than 3,000 scientists and public health experts hired to assist the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) pandemic response are being let go.

Their contracts are set to expire over the coming weeks across the US and they will not be renewed, as part of the country’s winding down of Covid spending.

The CDC Foundation — an independent body that supports the CDC’s work — recruited 4,000 epidemiologists, communication experts , and public health nurses during the pandemic.

But only 800 are set to keep their jobs when they are brought on by local health departments because the foundation has spent nearly all of its $289million Covid relief budget.

Staff set to lose their jobs expressed exasperation at a failure to renew contracts ahead of a looming ‘tripledemic’ of Covid, flu and RSV, the latter two of which are already wreaking havoc on hospitals. 

Katie Schenk, a senior epidemiologist who worked in Illinois and Washington DC until this summer, said the loss was ‘detrimental’ to public health and they were shedding staff ‘like there’s no tomorrow’.

But the move comes as Covid cases and deaths continue to stagnate. 

Despite declaring the pandemic ‘over’ just months ago, President Joe Biden announced plans to extend Covid’s status as a health emergency past January and possibly through the spring.

Some 4,000 workers were hired over the first two years of the pandemic to help ramp up surveillance and raise awareness of how to avoid infection.

But the CDC Foundation — an independent nonprofit created by Congress in 1992 to support the CDC — has not renewed their contracts.

Another $3billion in Covid relief funding for the next five years has been given to the CDC, which is being allocated to local health departments.

But it isn’t expected to be available until late November, when most contracts have ended. All funding for the CDC to tackle Covid was approved by Congress. 

Among those being laid off is Dr Schenk, a senior epidemiologist who worked at the Illinois and Washington DC health departments.

She told KHN: ‘How do you explain that there is no funding for employment in our field when there is clearly so much work to be done?

Cayenne Levorse, a manager brought on during the pandemic in Ohio, said she and 20 people working under her all lost their jobs in October.

She said they have left tons of work ‘unfinished’ after also being asked to help track cancer clusters, rural health disparities and environmental problems.

America’s public health workforce has been understaffed for decades, officials say, with one estimate from the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice suggesting at least 80,000 new employees are needed for state and local public health departments.

Just before the pandemic less than 30 per cent of health departments had their own epidemiologist or statistician, according to a 2020 KHN investigation.

Funding approved to fight Covid saw workers brought on who plugged gaps as well as helped in the fight against the pandemic virus. 

It comes as the sense of emergency over the Covid pandemic continues to subside.

Virtually all Covid restrictions have been abandoned in the country, with President Joe Biden declaring in September that the pandemic was ‘over’.

Some scientists were quick to challenge the president, however, saying that deaths were still too high.

The CDC Foundation received $45million from the CDC between April 2020 and March 2021 to bring on contact tracers, lab technicians, data scientists and epidemiologists to combat Covid.

It said that in the first phase of hiring alone it brought in 773 experts in almost every jurisdiction in the country.

The Foundation got a $23million extension from the agency in March 2021 to bring on 150 more staffers and extend contracts of others.  

It also received $200million in June last year which was aimed at recruiting and hiring 2,500 public health workers to further aid the Covid response.

Officials also turned to the organization to bolster the Covid vaccination campaign, handing it $20million to bring in 300 immunization workers and support vaccine distribution.