California Public Health Director Dr. Sonia Angell, a top official part of a team developing the state’s response to the pandemic, unexpectedly resigned Sunday night after less than a year on the job, a state official confirmed.
Angell did not give a reason for her resignation, which is effective immediately.
Angell’s resignation comes after a major blunder with the state’s COVID-19 tracking system when a computer glitch caused several thousand cases to go unreported.
The state is still working through that backlog to provide more accurate numbers.
In her resignation letter, Angell praised her colleagues.
“Since January, when we got word of repatriation flights arriving from Wuhan, China, our department has been front and center in what has become an all-of-government response of unprecedented proportions to COVID-19,” Angell wrote.
“Not one of our staff has gone untouched by the changes that have occurred. Not in our professional lives or our personal lives.”
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Sandra Shewry, Vice President of the California Health Care Foundation, will be appointed as Acting California Department of Public Health Director, a spokesperson said.
