A majority of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention staffers who were laid off during President Donald Trump's recent "chaos" have returned to work, according to a new report.
CNN reported that 700 of the 1,300 staffers who were fired after receiving an incorrect layoff notification on Friday have been reinstated, citing figures provided by a union representing federal workers. A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services told CNN that the employees received layoff notices because of a coding error in the messages.
The layoffs impacted CDC teams that publish the agency's flagship journal, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, as well as employees at the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, the Global Health Center, and the Public Health Infrastructure Center.
The incorrectly coded messages were sent at a time when the Trump administration appears to be using the recent government shutdown to implement government-wide layoffs. Reports indicate more than 4,000 government employees received layoff notices over the weekend.
For former federal workers like Dr. Nirav Shah, who resigned as principal deputy director of the CDC, the episode seemed all too familiar.
“It’s pure managerial incompetence,” she told CNN. “I used to think that chaos was the byproduct of this managerial incompetence. Now I start to wonder whether the chaos is the point.”