During the American sector of the coronavirus pandemic there have been missteps and yet other successes. Two of the vaccines came from basic research on doping cells with synthetic messenger RNA, pioneered in part in US labs. The pandemic mobilized not only US scientific talent but also the government, as appropriate. At the federal level, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) stood tall from the start. Another federal agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (known as the CDC), has been traditionally as esteemed by the health and biomedical professions as the NIH, and it played a major role in the country's response to the pandemic. Here I wish to recall for us how the CDC came to be, recognize its catalytic inaugural scientist, and comment on a recent issue.