"Staffers spent the weekend trading calls and texts, trying to piece together who had been axed, who had been spared, and, most puzzling, why. "There's really no strategy that they're using, no real approach-at least any thoughtful approach-to how they are doing these cuts," Daniel Jernigan, who directed the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases before he resigned in August, told me."
"I spoke with a half dozen current and former CDC officials, and foremost on their mind was what they described as the ineptitude of the botched downsizing. For example, almost all editors of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, which the CDC has published since 1960, were among those notified on Friday night that their work was "unnecessary or virtually identical to duties being performed elsewhere in the agency." By Saturday, several CDC sources told me, they had their jobs back."
"Andrew Nixon, the communications director for Health and Human Services, wrote in an email that "the employees who received incorrect notifications were never separated from the agency and have all been notified that they are not subject to the reduction in force." He declined to answer specific questions about layoffs. Many of the cuts that have stuck so far seem to conflict with the administration's stated aims."
Hundreds of CDC employees received layoff notifications during the federal shutdown despite many being furloughed since October 1. Notifications were reversed within a day for numerous workers with no explanation or apology, creating confusion and frantic staff communications. The downsizing process appeared inconsistent and poorly planned, with key editorial staff for the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report incorrectly deemed unnecessary and later reinstated. HHS communications stated that incorrect notifications did not constitute separations. Several implemented cuts appear to contradict stated administration priorities, affecting units such as a national dietary survey branch.
Read at The Atlantic
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