‘I’m Scared’: CDC Director Rochelle Walensky Chokes Up While Sounding Alarm on ‘Impending Doom’ of New Wave

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky seemed overcome with emotion as she implored American citizens to not let their guard down and continue mitigation efforts that have recently helped abate the spread of the potentially deadly Covid-19 contagion.

The stunning bit of footage came during Monday’s White House Covid Briefing and followed Walensksy’s recitation of data figures illustrating how the numbers of deaths and infections have started the familiar upturn that preceded previous spikes in cases from last July and before the winter months.

Reminding viewers of her previous pledge that she would always tell American citizens the truth, even when it was not the wanted news, Walensky said that “now is one of those times when I have to share the truth and hope that you will listen.” She then began to reflect on what she described as “the feeling that I have about impending doom.”

“We have so much to look forward to, so much potential of where we are in so much reason for hope, but right now I am scared,” she added, before explaining her experience as an attending doctor overseeing the death of a patient, unable to say goodbye to loved ones due to Covid.

“I know that feeling of nausea when you read the crisis standards of care and wonder whether there will be enough ventilators to go around and who is going to make the choice,” Walensky continued. “I know what it is like to go to the hospital every day and see the extra morgue sitting outside.”

Referencing her experience from 2020, the CDC director said “I did not know at the time when it would stop and we did not have the science to tell us. We were just scared,” before noting the great progress made. “We have come a long way.”

But as her voice cracked with desperation, Walensky pivoted from her role as a public health leader, to sounding the alarm as an everyday citizen.

“I’m speaking today not as your CDC Director and not only as your CDC Director but as a wife and a mother and a daughter to ask you to please hold on a little longer,” she pleaded. “I so badly want to be done. I know you want to be done. We are almost there, but not yet. I am asking you to just hold on longer to get vaccinated when you can so that all of those people that we all love will still be here when the been to make — pandemic ends.”

Walensky then noted how the current trajectory in the United States looks similar to many other countries—including Germany, Italy, and France—looked like just a few weeks ago, and since that time those countries have experienced a consistent spike in cases.

“We are not powerless, she added. “You can change the trajectory. it will take all of us following the public-health credit — prevention strategies while we work to get the American public vaccinated.”

Watch above via CSPAN.