[dropcap size=big]A[/dropcap]mid the resurgence of COVID-19, the dog days of summer have not been kind to the nation’s public health leaders. When California’s public health director and New York City’s health commissioner stepped down under pressure this month, they joined a list of nearly 50 state and local public health officials who have quit, been fired, or retired since April.
This article was produced by Capital & Main which is an award-winning publication that reports from California on economic, political, and social issues. L.A. Taco is co-publishing this article.
One of the highest-profile exceptions to the COVID-era purges is Barbara Ferrer, the director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (LAC DPH). Ferrer has received death threats while largely eluding public criticism from the media or political and civic leaders. But as Angelenos come to grips with the far-reaching policy failures that turned L.A. County into a COVID-19 hotspot, Ferrer — along with the Board of Supervisors, L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti, other elected officials and county Health Services chief Christina Ghaly — may face heightened scrutiny for a range of troubling facts:
- L.A. County accounts for nearly half of the state’s COVID-19 deaths, with more than 5,500 fatalities, though it is home to only 25 percent of California’s population.
- More than 233,000 county residents have tested positive for COVID-19, reflecting poorly on decisions made by Ferrer and other leaders during the disastrous late spring/early summer reopening.
- Latinos in Los Angeles County are more than twice as likely to die of COVID-19 than whites, raising questions about whether Ferrer — a fierce advocate of closing the racial gap in health care outcomes — has done enough to curb the virus among Latinos.
- Ferrer’s department, which oversees nursing homes in L.A. County, failed to slow the lethal spread of COVID-19 among nursing home residents in the early months of the pandemic, leading the Board of Supervisors to appoint an inspector general to conduct a wide-ranging investigation of conditions at skilled nursing facilities.
- Under Ferrer’s leadership, the public health department’s contact tracing and workplace enforcement programs have come under serious criticism for failing to adequately protect vulnerable populations.
Capital & Main spoke to nearly two dozen community advocates, academics, labor leaders, physicians and public health officials about Ferrer. While many speak favorably about Ferrer and view her as a visionary, others believe that she has made costly errors — and some insist that the department needs new leadership. Ferrer did not respond to requests to be interviewed for this story.