CDC Firings Fray Lifelines to Local Health Departments

The U.S. public health system has long been under strain, stymied by declines in funding as well as employees. And so state and local public health departments around the nation — tasked with monitoring and responding to disease outbreaks that threaten to sicken the masses — have relied on workers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help.

In February, the Trump administration abruptly fired many of them, a…