After receiving scrutiny for its COVID-19 response, the Centers for Disease Control announced it will rework much of the structure of the health agency.

“Over the past year, I have heard from many of you that you would like to see CDC build on its rich history and modernize for the world around us,” director Dr. Rochelle Walensky wrote in an email to the agency. “I am grateful for your efforts to lean into the hard work of transforming CDC for the better.”

Earlier this year, it was made known that the CDC was withholding much of its data regarding the COVID-19 pandemic due to fear of misinterpretation. Some of the gathered data that has not been revealed to the public are hospitalizations organized by race, age, and vaccination status. The agency also kept data regarding booster shot efficacy in 18 to 49-year-olds private, despite revealing information about its effectiveness in older adults in February.

According to The Washington Post, a CDC adviser said that the agency was severely unready to tackle the pandemic, while another said that the virus "has exposed some real weaknesses.” Another CDC representative said that the agency was looking to accelerate the communication of data throughout the past year, but that the structure of the agency needed revisions, The New York Times reports.

“I look forward to our collective efforts to position CDC, and the public health community, for greatest success in the future,” Walensky added.

Heading the review and rework of the agency will be Jim Macrae, the associate administrator for primary health care at the Health Resources and Services Administration. Like the CDC, HRSA is an agency under the Department of Health and Human Services.

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