Humbly disagree. I thought the author made clear he felt the CDC had never before in the history of the USA come under attack from such a misguided, venal, antiscience administration. Granted he attributed some fault also to some of the CDC leadership, particularly Redfield whom he framed as a 'congenial grandfather', but a weak leader at a time when the CDC particularly needed a strong one. The author clearly said that. And i felt the whole article clearly focused on the venality of Trump and his administration.
"I don't know why the author's contention seem to point to the cdc as the culprit and failure when it's pretty clear the whole cdc was a target of a insane narcissistic sick man with orange face paint. CDC was forced into many things and lessor minions of the CDC were scared into doing things behind top bosses back. This excerpt shows this in so many words. The article almost seems dismissive to the shittypants administration. "