Dr. Mandy Cohen director of CDC opens up about new role

Former North Carolina Health Secretary and current CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen discussed her new role Wednesday.

Cohen is in her third week as the agency's director. She said she is taking the lessons learned leading our state through the pandemic to this national public health organization.

"I think we did a terrific job … in North Carolina, responding to the pandemic, and I think that's because we foundationally focused on that trust," Cohen said.

Cohen said it's all about trust.

"It's what I shared at my very first all-hands meeting here at the CDC was about trust," Cohen said. "Now, we're going to focus on transparency, we're going to focus on execution and we're focused on building great relationships."

Cohen said it is easy to look back and say that they should have done things differently, but she said that they were doing the best they could with the information they had at the time.

"If anything, [what] we would change is making sure we were clear about what do we know and what don't we know, and explaining to folks that things may change over time,” she said. “So, I'm going to make sure to bring that lesson learned here as we're talking about different topics that will evolve over time."