CDC Director Walensky: We Don’t Have All the ‘Data That We Need’ on Monkeypox, It’s Similar to What We Had with COVID

During a portion of an interview with CBS News on Wednesday aired on Thursday’s “CBS This Morning,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky responded to criticisms of the agency’s monkeypox response by saying CDC officials “still have not seen all the immunization data that we need to be able to see in order to mobilize vaccinations” and this is “similar to some of the challenges that we had with COVID-19,” where officials didn’t have all the data they needed.

CBS News Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Jonathan LaPook asked, “Do you think the criticism that the CDC has been moving too slowly in dealing with the monkeypox outbreak, those criticisms are valid?”

Walensky answered, “We at CDC still have not seen all the immunization data that we need to be able to see in order to mobilize vaccinations across this country.” And “Part of those challenges are similar to some of the challenges that we had with COVID-19,” where they didn’t have all the necessary data.

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