In a large and hastily arranged Zoom call on Saturday, about 800 rattled staffers with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tried to make sense of the trauma they endured a day earlier, when a gunman across the street from the CDC campus opened fire on the agency’s buildings.

Patrick White is believed to have struggled with his mental health, according to that information. As he grappled with those issues, sources said, White had become increasingly fixated on the COVID-19 vaccine as a source of his grievances.

The alleged shooter killed a police officer and spread panic through the health agency and nearby Emory University.

"Kennedy is directly responsible for the villainization of CDC's workforce through his continuous lies about science and vaccine safety, which have fueled a climate of hostility and mistrust," one ex-employee wrote, according to the Associated Press news agency.