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.

The CDC, which tracks outbreaks of illness in the US, played a central role during the Covid pandemic and has been heavily-criticised by vaccine sceptics. Officer Rose was a former Marine who had served in Afghanistan.

The suspected gunman in the attack that killed a police officer near the Emory University campus and the CDC's headquarters was identified Saturday morning.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the agency’s more than 10,000 staff would work remotely on Monday.

The suspected gunman in the shooting of a police officer at the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta on Friday has been identified as Patrick Joseph White of Kennesaw, Georgia.