Dr. Mandy Ok. Cohen dropped by the Fox affiliate in Dallas in November, simply days after the governor of Texas signed a legislation barring personal employers from requiring Covid-19 photographs. If she thought selling vaccination can be a tricky promote in a ruby-red state, Dr. Cohen, the brand new director of the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, didn’t give any indication.

“I’m not simply the C.D.C. director, I’m additionally a mother,” she mentioned cheerily, noting on stay tv that her daughters, 9 and 11, had already acquired the newest Covid and flu photographs. She added, “So I wouldn’t advocate one thing for the American folks I wouldn’t advocate for my circle of relatives.”

It was the sort of inventory phrase that Dr. Cohen has repeatedly invoked as she pursues a job that some public well being specialists concern is unattainable: restoring Individuals’ religion in public well being, and in her battered company. 5 months into her tenure, with the Covid public well being emergency formally over, the C.D.C.’s new chief is relentlessly on message.

Individuals’ belief within the company, and in science extra broadly, was badly broken by the coronavirus pandemic, and the lack of religion is especially pronounced amongst Republicans. In a latest survey by the Pew Analysis Heart, 38 p.c of Republicans mentioned that they had little or no confidence in scientists to behave within the public’s greatest pursuits, up from 14 p.c in April 2020.

On the similar time, the C.D.C.’s winter vaccination marketing campaign seems to be falling on deaf ears. On Thursday, the company issued an alert warning that low vaccination charges for the flu, Covid and respiratory syncytial virus, often known as R.S.V., might result in “extreme illness and elevated well being care capability pressure within the coming weeks.” And partisan divisions over vaccination persist: A KFF ballot in September discovered that seven in 10 Democrats however only a quarter of Republicans deliberate to get the up to date Covid shot.

Dr. Cohen, whom President Biden chosen to succeed Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, is responding with a nationwide media blitz. Since taking the helm of the C.D.C. in July, she has traveled the nation, selling vaccination in 19 cities in 13 states. She has visited 22 vaccination websites and has participated in dozens of interviews, together with an look on NBC’s “Right this moment” simply earlier than Thanksgiving.

She has left a path of social media posts in her wake, together with a sequence of brief movies, referred to as “Examine-In With Dr. Cohen,” that sometimes start with some variation of the identical greeting: “Hello everybody, it’s Mandy Cohen!”

In one video recorded on Lengthy Island, Dr. Cohen and a county well being official, carrying arduous hats and vests, reported on how wastewater may also help scientists monitor viruses and illness. In Dallas, she appeared with one other county well being official to speak in regards to the significance of knowledge, and with a nurse at a church well being truthful. And in Chicago, she stood by the president of the American Medical Affiliation as he promoted vaccination.

When she speaks to reporters, she regularly brings up her youngsters.

“Science is necessary and sure, the info is necessary,” Dr. Cohen mentioned in an interview with The New York Occasions. “However on the finish of the day, we’re additionally all people. And if we will have a human-to-human dialog about what I’d do for my very own children, who I like and I need to be wholesome, perhaps that may join us differently.”

Dr. Cohen is taking on an company that’s in transition. Her predecessor, Dr. Walensky, who started serving firstly of the Biden administration and stepped down in June, commissioned a evaluate of the C.D.C. that recognized critical weaknesses in areas starting from testing to information assortment to communications. She then initiated an overhaul of the company.

Dr. Cohen has mentioned she is dedicated to finishing up that plan, which included establishing a brand new forecasting and analytics middle, in addition to structural modifications supposed to allow the company to rapidly translate its science into coherent coverage suggestions. However even her staunchest allies say her prime precedence have to be to alter the way in which the general public views her company.

“Restoring belief most likely is the No. 1 problem proper now,” mentioned Dr. Judith Monroe, the president and chief govt of the C.D.C. Basis, an unbiased nonprofit established by Congress to mobilize private-sector assist for the company’s work. “As a result of the place’s your platform if people don’t belief what you say?”

Specialists agree that C.D.C. officers and different public well being leaders made critical messaging missteps through the pandemic. Officers bred distrust by talking “with certainty when there wasn’t any” and later altering their suggestions, mentioned Brian C. Castrucci, the president and chief govt of the de Beaumont Basis, a public well being nonprofit that’s partnering with Frank Luntz, a pollster and political strategist, to check attitudes towards public well being.

Mr. Luntz, who rose to prominence working for Republicans, mentioned his analysis had discovered that a good portion of the general public — as a lot as 20 or 25 p.c — was now unreachable, as a result of public well being officers used language that “sounded prefer it was lecturing, and nearly abusive towards individuals who had reliable doubts.”

Based mostly on Mr. Luntz’s surveys and focus teams, the muse has developed messaging steering, together with a “communications cheat sheet,” to assist public well being officers attain Individuals of all political stripes. Dr. Tom Frieden, who served as C.D.C. director below President Barack Obama and has participated within the mission, mentioned Dr. Cohen’s communications fashion was in line with its findings.

“You’re there to empower folks with data, not berate folks to alter their conduct,” he mentioned. “I feel Dr. Cohen will get that.”

The morning earlier than she was to go away for a two-day, three-city swing by means of Texas, Dr. Cohen huddled along with her prime aides and her infectious illness staff on the C.D.C. headquarters in Atlanta for an replace on the flu, Covid and R.S.V. — which flow into throughout what the company now calls the “winter respiratory virus season.” One good thing about that moniker: Winter viruses are much less politically poisonous than Covid.

The information was blended. Hospitalizations from the flu have been up barely from final 12 months. The speed of Covid vaccination was a lot decrease than that of flu vaccination amongst well being care employees — not signal. A new monoclonal antibody shot to forestall R.S.V. in infants was briefly provide, however 77,000 extra doses had simply been launched. Texas was seeing an uptick in R.S.V.

However there was one thing else on Dr. Cohen’s thoughts. Throughout her travels, she had been listening to from individuals who fearful about unintended effects from vaccination and wished extra details about what federal well being officers have been doing to observe vaccine security. The C.D.C., she instructed her colleagues, wanted to have the ability to “inform a transparent and concise story.”

To that finish, Dr. Cohen is altering the language that the C.D.C. makes use of to explain itself. Testifying final month earlier than a Home subcommittee in what was her first look earlier than Congress in her new submit, she described the company as a “important nationwide safety asset” — a phrase that may have specific enchantment to Home Republicans, who’ve proposed slicing the C.D.C.’s funding by $1.6 billion, or roughly one-sixth of its finances.

However M. Anthony Mills, a senior fellow on the conservative American Enterprise Institute who research public belief in science, mentioned the nationwide safety body won’t enchantment to strange Individuals who mistrust the C.D.C. and different businesses just like the Nationwide Institutes of Well being and the Meals and Drug Administration.

“For Individuals who consider N.I.H. lied about funding analysis that brought about the pandemic, suspect the pharmaceutical trade is in mattress with the F.D.A. and see public well being efforts as an infringement on their freedom, that constellation of considerations doesn’t have a lot to do with nationwide safety,” he mentioned.

In contrast to Dr. Walensky, who had no prior authorities expertise and made headlines for in search of out media coaching, Dr. Cohen isn’t a stranger to Washington or the highlight.

She was a prime official on the Facilities for Medicare & Medicaid Companies through the Obama administration. Later, as secretary of well being and human companies in North Carolina, she laid the groundwork for the Republican-controlled legislature to settle for an enlargement of Medicaid, and he or she helped steer the state by means of the pandemic.

After information experiences that Mr. Biden was planning to select Dr. Cohen for the director’s submit, greater than two dozen congressional Republicans signed a letter accusing her of politicizing science. They cited her tenure in North Carolina, the place she referred to as for college kids and workers members in Ok-8 faculties to put on masks and threatened authorized motion in opposition to a faculty district over its Covid insurance policies.

However whereas her relationships with Republicans in North Carolina could have been tense, they by no means veered into vitriol, mentioned State Consultant Donny Lambeth, a Republican and a chair of the Well being Committee within the North Carolina Home of Representatives.

“She was cool, calm and picked up nearly each time we had her in entrance of us,” Mr. Lambeth mentioned. “She didn’t get rattled.”

There have been few fireworks throughout her congressional testimony final month. When Consultant Daniel Crenshaw, Republican of Texas, pushed her to confess that the C.D.C. had been improper through the pandemic, she politely ignored the request.

Consultant Jeff Duncan, Republican of South Carolina, wished to know if she had regrets about Covid restrictions from her time in North Carolina. Dr. Cohen didn’t admit to any. When he requested her pointedly if she would impose such restrictions immediately, she ducked the query, telling him as an alternative that she was trying ahead to a brand new chapter on the C.D.C.

“The excellent news,” she mentioned, “is we’re in a brand new place.”