Less than twenty-four hours after the Trump administration’s mass layoffs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sparked alarm among health experts, federal officials scrambled to undo what they now call a “technical correction.” The administration confirmed Saturday that hundreds of scientists—including disease detectives, outbreak response specialists, and the staff of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report—were fired “in error” and are being reinstated.
The rapid reversal followed widespread condemnation after The New York Times first reported that the agency’s Washington, D.C. office and major divisions overseeing respiratory diseases, chronic illness, injury prevention, and global health were gutted in a late-night wave of terminations. The layoffs, described by public health experts as a “Friday night massacre,” immediately triggered fears that the U.S. would lose the capacity to detect and contain disease outbreaks.
According to two federal health officials who spoke anonymously, “many of those workers were being brought back” after internal reviews found procedural mistakes in the reduction-in-force orders. “The employees were sent incorrect notifications, which was fixed last night and this morning with a technical correction,” a senior administration official said. “Any correction has already been remedied.”
Among those mistakenly dismissed were the top two leaders of the federal measles response team, staff working on the Ebola containment effort in the Democratic Republic of Congo, members of the Epidemic Intelligence Service, and the team that produces the CDC’s scientific journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Dr. Athalia Christie, who served as “incident commander” of the measles response, was among those reinstated. With nearly thirty years of experience managing outbreaks including Ebola, Marburg, and mpox, Christie has often been sought by the White House for her expertise. “Athalia is very well liked by the administration,” said Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who led the CDC’s respiratory disease center before resigning in August. Daskalakis had recruited Christie to lead the measles response.
Another senior infectious disease expert, Dr. Maureen Bartee, who was working at the Department of State, was also rehired. Both scientists had been dismissed when the Trump administration eliminated their umbrella offices—the Office of the Director of the CDC’s Global Health Center and the Office of the Director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.
By Saturday night, employees of those offices had received formal notice of their reinstatement. A two-paragraph email informed them that the layoff notice they had received “on or about” October 10 had been revoked. “You will not be affected by the upcoming RIF,” the message read.
Still, experts say the quick correction cannot undo the turmoil unleashed by the mass firings or the deeper structural damage to the CDC.
“This is going to be devastating to Americans and to the global community,” said Dr. Debra Houry, who served as the CDC’s chief medical officer before resigning in August in protest of the administration’s policies. “They are dismantling public health.”
Dr. Daskalakis, who also left the agency earlier this year, said the confusion over which disease response teams were being cut reveals “their lack of understanding that this thing is an interconnected organism.” He added, “I’m happy people are back, but this damage is not easy to repair both for current staff and for people who will lead public health in the future.”
While many of the wrongly terminated scientists have been reinstated, significant parts of the CDC remain gutted. The entire Washington office, which liaised with Congress and coordinated interagency efforts, will not be rehired. Employees from the Office of the Director of the Center for Injury Prevention and the Division of Violence Prevention Policy were also not reinstated.
The Saturday reversal, while averting the most immediate operational collapse, underscored the chaos gripping an agency already battered by political interference and violence. In August, a gunman fired more than 500 rounds of ammunition into the CDC’s Atlanta headquarters. Later that month, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. orchestrated the ouster of CDC Director Susan Monarez, prompting a wave of high-profile resignations.
The layoffs—followed by their partial retraction—reflect what many health professionals describe as a dangerous erosion of the nation’s public health infrastructure. They also deepen concerns about how a politically charged federal leadership is managing essential scientific operations.
Even with some teams restored, public health experts warn the episode has shattered morale and weakened preparedness as the U.S. heads into respiratory virus season. Offices responsible for pandemic prevention, global coordination, and domestic health security remain understaffed or eliminated.
As Dr. Catharine Young of Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health wrote earlier, “This isn’t streamlining the government—it’s dismantling our ability to detect and respond to outbreaks before they spread.” Her warning remains relevant even after Saturday’s rehires.
While the Trump administration has framed the layoffs as part of a broader restructuring to “reduce redundancy,” experts see a pattern of chaos that has left the CDC uncertain of its mission and vulnerable to political control. For now, the agency’s scientists—some reinstated, others gone—face a fractured future.
“The damage is not easy to repair,” Daskalakis said. “And for public health, time lost is lives lost.”
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