Inside The ‘ER Of Public Health’ Where CDC Is Running Its COVID-19 Response

|

February 27th, 2020

Dr. Jay Butler, deputy director for infectious diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, stands in the agency’s Emergency Operations Center in Atlanta. This has been the “nerve center” of the CDC’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak since mid January.

When a public health crisis strikes, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention staffs up its Emergency Operations Center.

Since January, the facility in Atlanta (also called the EOC) has been the control center of much of the agency’s response to the outbreak of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus.

On the main floor, public health workers sit side by side in long rows: some focus on their computer screens, others take incoming phone calls, others huddle together to confer over data.

Top Stories