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BULLETS IN THE WINDOWS  
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Katelyn Jetelina
August 10, 2025
Your Local Epidemiologist
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_ First: gunshots, lockdown. The headquarters of the Centers for
Disease Control campus in Atlanta was under attack. Dozens of my
friends and colleagues were inside. _

The Georgia Bureau of Investigators have Identified the man who open
fire at Emory University killing a police officer,

 

On Friday, my phone lit up with urgent texts. First: gunshots,
lockdown. Then the photos—bullet holes punched through windows,
shell casings scattered across the floor, videos echoing with “pop
pop pop.”

The CDC campus was under attack. Dozens of my friends and colleagues
were inside.

I’ve spent the past 36 hours trying to process what happened. What
is clear is this: it wasn’t random. Violence rarely is. And it goes
far beyond what happened Friday.

The perpetrator was shooting at public health workers—the people who
devote their careers to keeping communities safe. The ones who work to
stop the spread of disease and reduce gun violence. And in this case,
targeted because of their work on the Covid-19 vaccine.

Bullets struck four buildings. Some with more than 50 holes in the
glass. The hardest-hit area was the National Center for Immunization
and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD) and the Immunization Safety Office
(ISO). These are people who have carried a lot of the weight of the
pandemic, endured relentless hostility, and have faced six months of
attacks on vaccine policy. Many have almost no reserves left. And now,
on top of everything, they were literally under fire.

Those bullet holes are a haunting, terrible metaphor for what public
health has endured over the past six months—and the past six years.

We’ve endured doxxing, hacking, strangers at our homes, death
threats in our inboxes, croissants thrown at us in coffee shops.
Installing a new security system just because we volunteer for
something or show up on TV. Wearing heart monitors because our
cortisol levels have started impacting our organs. Deciding not to put
our kids in daycare at the CDC campus because it may be targeted. Then
firings. Defunding. Politically charged and targeted rhetoric.

And now a shooting happened. It could have been much worse if it
weren’t for a police officer—who left behind three kids of his
own—making the ultimate sacrifice. This doesn’t make it any less
scary.

One question keeps coming up from colleagues in my text
messages: _WHY DO WE KEEP DOING THIS?_

I know why. Because people in public health care too much about our
country to stop. Because we care about our kids’ futures. Because we
believe in a better life. Better community. Better health. We will
serve our neighbors even if they don’t understand what we’re doing
or why it matters. It’s in the blood of public health workers, woven
into every late night, every hard decision, every moment we choose
service over family or safety, whether it’s running into an Ebola
outbreak or writing a policy brief.

In the next week, the glass will be patched, the windows replaced, the
bullets swept from the floor. And this story (which has barely made
the news) will vanish. But the trauma, the fear, the exhaustion will
remain.

We’ll go back to our desks, our meetings, our spreadsheets. We’ll
keep working to stop the spread of disease. We’ll keep working to
prevent the next shooting. We’ll keep working for communities that
may never know our names.

And we’ll do it knowing we were targeted simply for doing our jobs,
jobs that protect even the people who hate us.

But make no mistake: _THIS CANNOT BE THE COST OF CARING._ We need
more than patched glass. We need a country that values the people who
protect it, recognizes the importance of words and their real-world
consequences, and values community and neighbors, not just self. Now.
Before the next shot is fired.

For my colleagues in public health

For those who feel shut down, disconnected, or even resentful that
people expect you to keep showing up with empathy when you’ve been
under attack for so long, it’s time to pause to name what’s
happening. Acknowledge the shock and grief. Because if not, we risk
getting stuck there. Processing it together is one way to move forward
without carrying the weight alone. That doesn’t mean having all the
answers. It means giving ourselves and each other the space to feel
it, to say it out loud, to step back when needed. It’s okay to not
be okay.

Over these past six years, I’ve learned that the loudest voices are
not the majority, even though it feels like hell that they are. It’s
also clear that the path is long, and I fear it’s going to get
harder before it gets better. But, as MLK Jr. said: “The arc of the
moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Don’t let
the darkness erase the stars, the sunset, the good that still exists.
We need your light in the world.

And as a CDC friend texted me last night: Illegitimi non carborundum.

* Domestic Terrorism
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* anti-vaxxers
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