New York City’s health commissioner, Dr. Oxiris Barbot, resigned on Tuesday to protest her “deep disappointment” with Mayor Bill de Blasio’s handling of the pandemic, renewing scrutiny of his leadership during the crisis just as the city faces pressing decisions about how quickly to reopen schools and businesses.
Dr. Barbot’s departure came after escalating tensions between City Hall and top city health department officials, which had begun at the start of the coronavirus outbreak in March, burst into public view and raised concerns that the feuding was undermining crucial public health policies.
Mr. de Blasio immediately announced a replacement for Dr. Barbot, which suggested that she had resigned because she believed that she was about to be dismissed or demoted.
“I leave my post today with deep disappointment that during the most critical public health crisis in our lifetime, that the health department’s incomparable disease control expertise was not used to the degree it could have been,” Dr. Barbot said in her resignation email sent to Mr. de Blasio, a copy of which was shared with The New York Times.
“Our experts are world renowned for their epidemiology, surveillance and response work. The city would be well served by having them at the strategic center of the response not in the background.”
At a hastily called news conference after her resignation, Mr. de Blasio defended his handling of the outbreak, saying that the city had made ”extraordinary progress.”
The virus took a devastating toll in the spring, killing more than 20,000 residents, but it has largely ebbed in recent weeks. On Monday, for example, only 316 people in the city tested positive out of more than 30,000 tested.
Still, the turnover in the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene comes at a pivotal moment: Public schools are scheduled to partially open next month — which could be crucial for the city’s recovery — and fears are growing that the outbreak could surge again when the weather cools.
“It had been clear in recent days that it was time for a change,” Mr. de Blasio said about Dr. Barbot. “We need an atmosphere of unity. We need an atmosphere of common purpose.”
The mayor announced the appointment of a new health commissioner, Dr. Dave A. Chokshi, a former senior leader at Health + Hospitals, the city’s public hospital system.
At no point in the statement about Dr. Chokshi’s appointment did the mayor thank — or even mention — Dr. Barbot, who had served in his administration since the start of his first term in 2014. Mr. de Blasio did acknowledge her service during the news conference.
The speed of the appointment and the robustness of the announcement — Mr. de Blasio had lined up a former surgeon general to speak highly of Dr. Chokshi — indicated that Dr. Barbot’s resignation had not occurred in a vacuum. One city official said she had done so on Tuesday because she believed she was going to be fired.
Dr. Chokshi, who has also worked for health department in Louisiana and as a health adviser to the United States secretary of Veterans Affairs, received praise from the former surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, who called him an “extraordinary public health leader who both sees the forest and the trees.”
Still, former city health officials said the mayor should have done more to listen to and support Dr. Barbot.
“It’s a bad day for the city. She’s a very qualified commissioner of health,” said Lilliam Barrios-Paoli, a former deputy mayor of health under Mr. de Blasio who worked with Dr. Barbot. “There’s another woman of color that goes down. I think it’s a really regrettable thing.
“This is not a position you can put anybody just because. It’s the premier public health agency in the country,” Ms. Barrios-Paoli added. “It’s just a shame that she did not feel that she was supported by the mayor.”
Current and former health officials said the departure of Dr. Barbot reflected Mr. de Blasio’s history of distrust in his health department. From early in the coronavirus outbreak, he has clashed with the department on testing, public messaging and how quickly to shutter schools.
Mr. de Blasio has been faulted for resisting calls to close down schools and businesses, which some epidemiologists believe worsened the outbreak.
Once he decided on closures, Mr. de Blasio pushed for the state to authorize further restrictions, a move ultimately made by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. And in the intervening months, the mayor has moved cautiously in reopening the city, guarding the progress that has been made in controlling the virus.
But even as the outbreak began to ebb in late May, tensions with Dr. Barbot mounted.
Some public health officials had bristled at the mayor’s decision to place the city’s contact-tracing program inside Health + Hospitals. The health department has performed such tracing for decades; the public hospitals have not.
Dr. Barbot disagreed with the move, but kept her disapproval private.
Yet the behind-the-scenes tensions flared into the public eye in May, when an article appeared in The New York Post about a conflict months earlier between Dr. Barbot and a police commander who wanted personal protective gear that had been set aside for health workers to be given instead to the police. The Post quoted Dr. Barbot as saying at one point, “I don’t give two rats’ asses about your cops.” Police unions and some elected officials called for her ouster.
At that point, Dr. Barbot began to make fewer public appearances. And Mr. de Blasio seemed to be looking elsewhere for public health guidance, turning to a new senior adviser, Dr. Jay Varma, and to Dr. Mitchell Katz, the public hospitals chief.
On Tuesday, Mr. de Blasio made clear that he did not believe that Dr. Barbot was a team player.
“It’s never about one agency,” he said at one point. He used the words “teamwork” or “team” 15 times in a 38-minute news conference.
New York City’s health department is regarded as one of the best municipal health agencies in the world. But during the epidemic, the mayor has repeatedly ignored the advice of its top disease-control experts and sidelined the department.
“I think this is the culmination of months of conflict between the health department and City Hall,” said Councilman Mark Levine, who heads the Council’s health committee. “This reflects enormous frustration that global experts in infectious disease are being marginalized in the middle of a pandemic.”
The Coronavirus Outbreak ›
Frequently Asked Questions
Updated August 4, 2020
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I have antibodies. Am I now immune?
- As of right now, that seems likely, for at least several months. There have been frightening accounts of people suffering what seems to be a second bout of Covid-19. But experts say these patients may have a drawn-out course of infection, with the virus taking a slow toll weeks to months after initial exposure. People infected with the coronavirus typically produce immune molecules called antibodies, which are protective proteins made in response to an infection. These antibodies may last in the body only two to three months, which may seem worrisome, but that’s perfectly normal after an acute infection subsides, said Dr. Michael Mina, an immunologist at Harvard University. It may be possible to get the coronavirus again, but it’s highly unlikely that it would be possible in a short window of time from initial infection or make people sicker the second time.
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I’m a small-business owner. Can I get relief?
- The stimulus bills enacted in March offer help for the millions of American small businesses. Those eligible for aid are businesses and nonprofit organizations with fewer than 500 workers, including sole proprietorships, independent contractors and freelancers. Some larger companies in some industries are also eligible. The help being offered, which is being managed by the Small Business Administration, includes the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program. But lots of folks have not yet seen payouts. Even those who have received help are confused: The rules are draconian, and some are stuck sitting on money they don’t know how to use. Many small-business owners are getting less than they expected or not hearing anything at all.
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What are my rights if I am worried about going back to work?
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Should I refinance my mortgage?
- It could be a good idea, because mortgage rates have never been lower. Refinancing requests have pushed mortgage applications to some of the highest levels since 2008, so be prepared to get in line. But defaults are also up, so if you’re thinking about buying a home, be aware that some lenders have tightened their standards.
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What is school going to look like in September?
- It is unlikely that many schools will return to a normal schedule this fall, requiring the grind of online learning, makeshift child care and stunted workdays to continue. California’s two largest public school districts — Los Angeles and San Diego — said on July 13, that instruction will be remote-only in the fall, citing concerns that surging coronavirus infections in their areas pose too dire a risk for students and teachers. Together, the two districts enroll some 825,000 students. They are the largest in the country so far to abandon plans for even a partial physical return to classrooms when they reopen in August. For other districts, the solution won’t be an all-or-nothing approach. Many systems, including the nation’s largest, New York City, are devising hybrid plans that involve spending some days in classrooms and other days online. There’s no national policy on this yet, so check with your municipal school system regularly to see what is happening in your community.
Most recently, senior health department officials disagreed with Mr. de Blasio on what to do when staff or students in city schools test positive for the virus, according to a person with knowledge of the officials’ thinking.
Mr. de Blasio announced on Friday that a given school building could close, in some cases for 14 days, when two positive cases emerged and were not linked to the same classroom. The plan gives disease investigators some discretion on closure. But even with only 1 percent of tests coming back positive, as is the case in New York City now, health officials are still worried that the thresholds will lead to many schools closing at some point in the academic year, the person said.
Perhaps the most consequential debate inside City Hall over the coronavirus came during the second week in March. The city had a small number of positive cases, but its public health system was flashing a warning about the unchecked spread of a flulike virus.
Dr. Barbot and one of her top deputies began urging more restrictions on gatherings. Mr. de Blasio for a time sided instead with Dr. Katz, who had been advising City Hall against ordering shutdowns.
Some officials inside the health department talked about quitting that week, or staging a walkout to force action. Eventually, top officials and the mayor agreed on the need to lock down the city to stop the spread of the virus. Mr. de Blasio ordered schools closed on March 15.
Outside of the administration, some blamed Dr. Barbot for the delays and confusion, citing her shifting public statements on the virus from late January to early March. A few elected officials called for her to be fired in early April.
The turmoil at the top of the city’s health agency worsened in May over the mayor’s decision to locate the city’s contact-tracing efforts within its public hospital system and not in the health department.
Under Health + Hospitals, the city’s contact-tracing program got off to a rocky start. Lacking the capability to hire and manage 3,000 new workers, it outsourced much of the day-to-day management of the call center at the core of its operations to Optum, a billion-dollar subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group.
So far, fewer than half of New Yorkers who have tested positive for the coronavirus — some 20,000 people since the program began on June 1 — have shared their contacts.
“Right now, cases are popping up all over the place and we are not linking them to known contacts except in a small proportion of cases,” Dr. Neil Vora, the director of the trace effort, said at an internal town-hall-style meeting for tracers last month, a recording of which was provided to The Times.
Even with the new tracing program, the health department has been called on to handle more intricate aspects of so-called disease detective work, particularly in group settings like homeless shelters and nursing homes. That expanded to include restaurants and other social gatherings last month.
The mayor said on Friday that outbreaks in schools would also be handled by the health department, in coordination with the city’s new corps of contact tracers.
Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Otterman contributed reporting.
August 05, 2020 at 06:41AM
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N.Y.C. Health Commissioner Resigns After Clashes With Mayor Over Virus - The New York Times
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