Report: Biden picks Rochelle Walensky to lead CDC

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta. — (Image credit: Getty Images)

President-elect Joe Biden has picked Rochelle Walensky to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, two people with knowledge of the matter told Politico on Sunday.

Walensky is the chief of infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. The CDC is now being led by Dr. Robert Redfield, who became director in March 2018.

As director of the CDC, Walensky will have a major role in helping Biden and his administration navigate the coronavirus pandemic. Biden has been calling for a nationwide mask mandate, and said he will ask Americans to wear a mask during his first 100 days in office. On Friday, the CDC recommended, for the first time during the months-long pandemic, that people always wear a mask when they are not at home.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.