ATLANTA, Ga. - Monday was the deadline for staff to return to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Atlanta headquarters.
Employees received an email that it was expected they'd all be back on campus by Sept. 15.
Employees had been working remotely since the agency was targeted by a shooter in Aug. 8, when nearly 500 shots were fired.
DeKalb county police officer David Rose was killed, and the gunman died by suicide.
The order to return came as the CDC tries to sort through not just recent cuts and the emotional aftermath of the deadly shooting, but also a wave of resignations.
Former CDC Director Dr. Susan Monarez was ousted from her position after less than a month on the job, prompting upset employees to walk out, too.
Monarez was swiftly replaced by Jim O'Neill, who most recently served as deputy secretary of health and human services, working directly under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Meanwhile, Kennedy's new vaccine advisory committee meets this week, with votes expected on whether to change recommendations on shots against COVID-19, hepatitis B and chickenpox.
The exact questions to be voted on Thursday and Friday in Atlanta are unclear.
Some public health experts are worried that the votes will -- at a minimum -- raise unwarranted new questions about vaccines in the minds of parents.
Perhaps even more consequential would be a vote that restricts a government program from paying for vaccines for low-income families.
"I'm tightening my seat belt," said Dr. William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt University expert on vaccines.
Kennedy, a leading antivaccine activist, fired the entire 17-member panel earlier this year and replaced it with a group that includes several anti-vaccine voices.
Before Kennedy was health secretary, ACIP would typically vote in June to reaffirm recommendations for shots against respiratory viruses that sicken millions of Americans each fall and winter.
This past June, Kennedy's ACIP voted to recommend flu shots for Americans but was silent on COVID-19 shots.
Before that meeting, Kennedy announced he was removing COVID-19 shots from the CDC's recommendations for healthy children and pregnant women. The move was heavily criticized by doctors' groups and public health organizations, and prompted a lawsuit by the American Academy of Pediatrics and other groups.