The latest round of budget cuts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has sparked alarm among public health advocates, who warn that the agency could be left so depleted that there’s “nobody to answer the phone” during the next crisis. Over the October 11-14, 2025, weekend, approximately 600 CDC employees were terminated as part of the Trump administration’s aggressive push to downsize the federal workforce amid a government shutdown, following an initial wave of 1,300 notices where half were hastily reinstated after legal pushback. These layoffs targeted critical areas like disease surveillance, outbreak forecasting, data analysis, and even mental health support staff, leaving divisions hobble and experts fearing impaired responses to emerging threats such as measles outbreaks or avian flu. Critics, including former CDC officials, decry the cuts as shortsighted, arguing they erode the nation’s already fragile public health infrastructure at a time when rapid detection and coordination are essential.

Yet, for many Americans scarred by the COVID-19 pandemic, these reductions feel like a long-overdue reckoning with an agency that repeatedly failed to deliver on its core mission of controlling and preventing disease outbreaks. The CDC’s mishandling—from botched diagnostic tests that delayed case tracking, to flip-flopping guidance on masks, quarantine, and school reopenings that sowed widespread confusion—exposed deep-seated flaws in communication, agility, and scientific prioritization, contributing to over 1.1 million U.S. deaths and a three-year drop in life expectancy. Internal reviews and external critiques alike have lambasted the agency for aligning too closely with political pressures, downplaying aerosol transmission risks, and emphasizing individual choice over collective prevention strategies, ultimately undermining public trust and allowing preventable spread. As one analysis put it, the CDC’s “operating posture was not adequate to effectively respond to a crisis the size and scope of COVID-19,” revealing an organization more attuned to academic timelines than real-time emergencies.

Public sentiment, reflected in polls and commentary, increasingly views the CDC not as an indispensable guardian but as a bureaucratic behemoth that has squandered taxpayer dollars without commensurate results—potentially over $200 billion in federal appropriations across the past 25 years, from roughly $4-5 billion annually in the early 2000s to peaks exceeding $10 billion during the pandemic, much of it funneled to states yet yielding inconsistent outcomes. While exact cumulative figures vary, the agency’s ballooning budget—bolstered by mandatory programs like Vaccines for Children and emergency funds—has drawn fire for inefficiencies, with critics pointing to chronic underperformance in outbreak prevention despite warnings of inevitable pandemics. In this light, the cuts are seen less as a threat and more as fiscal discipline, prompting calls for a leaner, more accountable CDC focused on core functions rather than expansive, often redundant initiatives that failed to avert catastrophe when it mattered most.