The director of Public Health in California returned on Sunday. No reason was given. Dr Sonia Angell was the first Latina to ever have the role and her dismissal comes after less than a year on the job.
Angell sent a letter to her staff making the announcement on Sunday night. She posted a brief note on her personal Twitter account on Monday.
Her boss, Governor Gavin Newsom, issued a statement of one sentence thanking her.
“I want to thank Dr. Angell for her service to the state and her work in helping to support our public health system during this global pandemic, while never losing sight of the importance of health equity,” Newsom wrote.
Angell’s departure comes after a disastrous week ahead of the Newsom administration’s fight against the pandemic. On Tuesday, news began to surface about counting irregularities in the state’s daily coronavirus system reporting.
On Friday, California’s top health sector Dr. Mark Ghaly held a news conference, acknowledging that multiple mistakes on the part of the state caused a backlog of 250,000-300,000 records in their system reporting business. This system is mainly used to print and distribute coronavirus data.
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The error caused an undercount in the state daily new COVID-19 case data for the past two weeks, Ghaly said. Numerous hospital and deaths were apparently unaffected.
Ghaly apologizes not only to the audience, but, shyly, to his boss Newsom.
“We apologize,” Ghaly said on behalf of his staff. “You earn better. The mayor demands better.”
“The governor has conducted a full investigation into what happened,” Ghaly said. “And we will hold people accountable.”
Newsom has not given any of its regular coronavirus new conferences since last Monday, even when the state crossed the grim milestone of 10,000 deaths due to the virus. The mayor, who is fond of saying “data is fundamental” to his decisions about coronavirus, also did not comment on the reporting error. He is expected to do this today at an afternoon news conference.
Newsom is also expected to appoint Angell’s replacement today. Ghaly continues in his role as director of the state ‘Department of Health and Human Services’.
