Patrick Semansky/AP
Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the highest respiratory illness official on the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention who was among the many first to warn the American public about how a lot the pandemic would change on a regular basis life, is stepping down from the company.
She made the announcement in an e-mail to employees Friday, as first reported by The Washington Publish and confirmed by NPR. Her final day can be Might 14.
“My household and I’ve decided that now’s one of the best time for me to transition to a brand new section of my profession,” she wrote.
Messonnier had labored for the CDC for greater than 25 years, ascending to her function as director of the Nationwide Heart for Immunization and Respiratory Illnesses in 2016. Since late 2019, she had headed the company’s COVID-19 activity power, however she was just lately reassigned from that publish.
“Dr. Messonnier has been a real hero, and thru her profession by way of public well being she’s been a steward of public well being for the nation. Over this pandemic and thru her many-decade profession, she’s made important contributions, and she or he leaves behind a robust power of management and braveness in all that she’s completed,” CDC chief Dr. Rochelle Walensky mentioned at a Friday briefing of the White Home COVID-19 Response Staff, declining to remark additional.
Messonnier rose to public prominence for her warnings concerning the coronavirus in early 2020.
At a White Home press briefing in late February, when the nation had barely greater than a dozen reported circumstances of the virus, Messonnier warned that group unfold could be doubtless and that “disruption to on a regular basis life may be extreme.”
“It isn’t a lot a query of if this may occur anymore, however moderately extra a query of precisely when this may occur and the way many individuals on this nation may have extreme sickness,” she mentioned.
On the time, her phrases concerning the pandemic had been among the many strongest but from the Trump administration, which was nonetheless publicly downplaying the severity of the state of affairs. Shares tumbled. The Wall Road Journal later reported that then-President Donald Trump threatened to fireplace Messonnier shortly afterward.
The following day, Trump introduced he was placing the vice chairman in control of the federal government’s response and famously predicted that what had been then 15 reported circumstances “inside a few days goes to be down to shut to zero.”
Messonnier didn’t seem at any additional White Home briefings, although she continued to make different public appearances, together with briefings on the CDC and an interview with NPR.
In her resignation announcement, Messonnier mentioned she is going to turn out to be the chief director for pandemic and public well being methods on the Skoll Basis, a personal group based by Jeff Skoll, the primary president of eBay. The Skoll Basis is an NPR sponsor.
NPR well being reporter Selena Simmons-Duffin contributed to this report.