It has been one year since a gunman opened fire at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Atlanta headquarters, killing one officer and injuring none, but leaving many employees with deep trauma. The shooter, who believed that Covid-19 vaccines were harmful, sprayed the agency’s main campus with over 500 rounds of ammunition from five guns.

Aftermath and Ongoing Trauma

Many CDC workers still don’t feel safe coming to work and say they still feel targeted and undermined by federal officials, including US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The agency has suffered deep staff cuts under the Trump administration, with over 3,300 staff lost, roughly one-quarter of its total workforce, over the past fiscal year.

Some employees have been allowed to work from home, but lower-level staff have been ordered to return to buildings that still bear the scars of the shooting. Repairs to windows, facades, and doors are expected to be complete by the end of September. Many employees are still in counseling for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and know others who are in therapy as well.

The shooting has been described as a terrorist attack against a US federal facility, and many employees feel that the administration bears some responsibility for putting the agency’s workers in harm’s way. Kennedy has a history of disparaging the CDC and its staff, and his words of condolence after the shooting rang hollow to many employees.

Original reporting: KEYT (Ventura/Santa Barbara) — read the source article.