CalMatters
By Ana B. Ibarra and Kristen Hwang, CalMatters
Dr. Mark Ghaly, who led California’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic as a top adviser to Gov. Gavin Newsom, is stepping down from his position as secretary of Health and Human Services, the governor’s office announced today.
Ghaly has been a consistent face in Newsom’s administration since 2019, when the pediatrician took office in the governor’s cabinet. Many California residents may recognize the bespectacled doctor as he often delivered the latest COVID-19 updates, either from a podium or from his desk with his kids’ colorful drawings in the background.
When some in the public criticized Newsom’s pandemic rules as overreaching, Ghaly was often responsible for explaining the reasoning and the science behind the state’s decisions. He also gave the governor a COVID vaccine in a live broadcast when the shots became available.
Newsom at a press conference said Ghaly is leaving the agency to “focus a little bit more on himself and his kids rather than 40 million Americans.” Newsom called Ghaly “the most transformative leader in the health space” in the U.S. in recent years.
“His steadfast leadership of California’s nation-leading response to the pandemic saved countless lives and set the stage for our state’s strong recovery,” Newsom said in a statement.
Ghaly will stay in his role through the end of the month. Newsom appointed Kim Johnson, who currently heads the California Department of Social Services, as the state’s new Health and Human Services secretary. Johnson will start her new role on Oct. 1.
As the state’s top health official, Ghaly steered just about every health conversation in the state. He served as the board chair of the state’s health insurance marketplace, Covered California; he led a new board charged by law with bringing down the cost of health care, and he steered the Healthy For All Commission, a group of experts assigned with exploring paths to getting California to a state of health coverage for all residents.
“That doesn’t happen without a center of gravity that allows things to align for change,” said Dr. Sandra Hernandez, president of the California Health Care Foundation, who has worked with Ghaly on multiple health commissions, including the state’s affordability board and Covered California.
Advocates and community groups have worked for decades on many of the health care changes that took place during Ghaly’s tenure, including the multibillion-dollar overhaul of the state’s public insurance program known as CalAIM, but Hernandez credits Ghaly for his “unique ability to see how all the pieces work together.”
“To move all of the necessary levers of government to make those things come together and have momentum…that’s extraordinary leadership,” Hernandez said.
Newsom also credited Ghaly with overhauling California’s behavioral health system to expand treatment for people in need; creating a blueprint for the state to better serve aging Californians; and launching CalRx, an initiative for the state to manufacture and distribute its own, more affordable medications, starting with insulin and naloxone.
He’ll long be associated with Newsom’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, which frustrated some Californians because of its long business lockdowns and school closures. Those concerns propelled the failed recall campaign against Newsom in 2021.
Newsom and Ghaly have defended their policies by saying they saved lives in an unprecedented pandemic. Newsom has acknowledged he would have opened up the state earlier if he had today’s understanding of the virus when he made those decisions.
“I think we would’ve done everything differently,” Newsom said on NBC’s Meet the Press a year ago.
Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.
This article was originally published by CalMatters.
“Then, on February 7, just two days after Senate Republicans acquitted him, Trump picked up the phone and called veteran journalist Bob Woodward to tell him there was a deadly new virus spreading around the world. It was airborne, he explained, and was five times ‘more deadly than even your strenuous flus.’ ‘This is deadly stuff,’ he said. He would not share that information with other Americans, though, continuing to play down the virus in hopes of protecting the economy. More than a million of us did not live through the ensuing pandemic.”
-By historian Heather Cox Richardson in “Letters from an American”
An appointed positon that ruined so many lives and businesses in CA with his position of power. GFY.
An appointed President who withheld COVID information from the public that could have saved lives.
https://www.npr.org/2020/09/10/911368698/trump-tells-woodward-he-deliberately-downplayed-coronavirus-threat
COAST – how exactly were they “ruined?” Curious what your thoughts are on the tens of thousands of lives that were lost unnecessarily due to Trump discouraging people from getting vaccinated? I mean, seems like not just those lives that were actually lost, but the lives of the loved ones left behind were pretty messed up. Do those count or just the people who had some financial struggles due to the shutdowns that slowed the spread of the deadly disease?
Just more hateful garbage from CW.
If CW says it, it isn’t true.
Fauci and this follower screwed a whole lot of businesses and kids by panicking and overreaching in their complete shutdown. You don’t remember?
BASIC – yes, it was inconvenient and cost people a lot of time and money, but what was the alternative? It was a new threat, spreading quickly and infecting millions and killing, at the time, tens of thousands of Americans, millions worldwide. It’s easy to use hindsight to complain about it, but honestly, what else could have been done to stop the rapid spread of this then deadly disease?
Really, I feel like the person who LIED to America about it and actually encouraged people to avoid the vaccine, which resulted in the deaths of probably tens of thousands of Americans who listened to him, should be the focus of ire here. Then again, we’ve seen time and time again that no matter how criminal or morally vile he is, half the country will still support him. THAT is the bigger problem.
ALL HAIL BASIC805, THE BLACK PRINCE OF EDHAT!
I bow down and congratulate you on the community recognition of your Edhat posting profligacy!
Across 3,127 counties in the U.S., 620,872 estimated excess deaths occurred during the first year of the pandemic (March 2020 to February 2021), and 538,708 estimated excess deaths occurred during the second year (March 2021 to February 2022).
Is more than a million excess deaths worth a shutdown? I guess the bleach remedy didn’t work for them…..
Nor did the horse de-wormer.
I’m not anti-vax whatsoever. I believe in proven, standard vaccines and have administered plenty of them myself. I think the way the government both federally (Fauci) and locally handled COVID was very poor. The blanket shutdowns went across the board and into overtime. Kids and businesses suffered so that those who did need to watch their asses and stay home didn’t catch it. The greater good definitely suffered, especially the youth, who never were going to have any level of morbidity not to mention mortality as a whole. Hopefully next time there’ll be more sanity.
Again, hindsight is fine and dandy. I’m sure next time there’s a rapid global deadly pandemic that no one has any experience in handling, they’ll take into account what they learned from the last one.
Translation: He’s not anti-vax, he just disparages life-saving measures at every opportunity.
“Life-saving” = keeping kids out of school learning in person and being able to socialize and play, for over a year? Nah. Hey, YOU keep masking up if YOU want to, especially if you’re old, diabetic, obese, etc. that make you at high risk. Or even if you’re just scared.
BI – You don’t seem to have a grasp of epidemiology. Letting disease spread, even if you think it doesn’t threaten you, puts myriad others in danger. Try to think beyond your own bubble.
Now hold on ANON – as we’ve been told ad nauseum, he is a physician who works at UCSB but “does not work for UCSB as a physician.”
The kids were never the spreaders nor the ones dying from COVID dude. Simple as that. It’s not a bubble. It’s a fact. I think you are the one living in a bubble, with a mask one at that.
BASIC – “The kids were never the spreaders” – Not only is that 100% absolutely and totally WRONG, as a self proclaimed “physician,” this makes you, yet again, a LIAR. Well, that, or simply not a very good doctor.
“At least 75% of the children who acquired COVID-19 showed no symptoms. This suggests they unknowingly had virus in their noses but may have been spreading it to others. Schools ranked the highest as public sources of exposure compared with health clinics and grocery stores.” – https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/public-health/study-sheds-light-sars-cov-2-transmission-homes-kids
“Once US schools reopened in fall 2020, children contributed more to inferred within-household transmission when they were in school, and less during summer and winter breaks.” – https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/more-70-us-household-covid-spread-started-child-study-suggests
“Results
Unlike with the ancestral virus, children infected with VOC spread SARS-CoV-2 to an equivalent number of household contacts as infected adults and were equally as likely to acquire SARS-CoV-2 VOC from an infected family member.” – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10161681/
Shall I keep going?
If you want, or read…
Children are not COVID-19 super spreaders: time to go back to school:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32371442/
Child-Care Centers Are Not Big COVID Spreaders, Research Says:
https://www.webmd.com/covid/news/20231025/child-care-centers-are-not-big-covid-spreaders-research-says
To what extent do children transmit SARS‐CoV‐2 virus?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7323087/
Or how about listening the Pediatricians themselves…
https://acpeds.org/blog/children-are-not-super-spreaders-of-covid-19
Should I go on too? I’ll pass. Keep being afraid of you want. That’s your call.
Again, misunderstanding epidemiology. Kids weren’t super spreaders mainly because they weren’t gathering in large groups due to the health measures (and smart parents).
See what the Dok considers a group of authoritative pediatricians:
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/american-college-pediatricians
He probably misconstrued the word authoritarian.
And good luck trying to find legitimate sources to refute my statement about kids and COVID mortality- you’ll have to find some real quacky sites to support that opinion…but be my guest. It’s your time…
BASIC I never refuted that. Read words better, dude. Further, I never said we should still be wearing masks, so quit with the stupid comments about me being scared. I SOLELY and COMPLETELY am calling you out for lying about how kids “never” were spreaders.
“legitimate sources” like a non-medically trained journalist on WebMD? Or like the hate group you cited?
Please man, you are the last one to talk about “legitimate sources” here.
BASIC – Yeah, please do go on, but I don’t think you can recover from this one. You’ve still failed – that’s an F for you.
1) YOU SAID “kids were never the spreaders.” Now you’re backpedalling saying they weren’t “super spreaders.” YOU SAID “NEVER.” FAIL.
2) All 3 of your links predate mine, some by 3 years give or take. Remember how everyone thought in the summer of 2020 it would just be a “few weeks?” FAIL.
3) The American College of Pediatricians is considered a “hate group” given their far right politics and anti-LGBQT stance, so that op ed is pretty much useless. Well, unless you like those kind of people and hate facts. FAIL.
Overall: FAIL.
So the largest Pediatric medical society in the United States is lying too then? Nice. You’re clueless. You don’t like their politics? What the hell does that have to do with COVID and medical care? A hate group? More like a group that doesn’t fit your little idea of society. You call everyone you don’t agree with a liar or an idiot, so…
Silly stuff. F for you!
BASIC – the American College of Pediatricians (again, a designated hate group) is the “largest Pediatric medical society in the United States?”
Weird, because they’re not even listed, like anywhere, on the American Board of Pediatrics website: https://www.abp.org/content/pediatrics-and-medical-organizations
Not only that, you seem to forget about the American Academy of Pediatrics, a group by and large considered to be the most preeminent pediatric group in the US. Again, not the hate group you cited.
Maybe you’re not a liar. Maybe you really believe this crazy misinformation you post. So either you have no medical training whatsoever, or you’re a very delusional and unprofessional doctor with little regard for facts. My god though, that’s terrifying to know you’re out there practicing if the latter is true!
But one thing is for sure. You can’t say a truthful thing if you tried. Look at my disagreements with others about food vendors. I never called anyone a liar. I only use that word to describe people like you, who REPEATEDLY and CONSTANTLY make verifiably (often easily so) FALSE statements of fact.
F-f-f-f-f-f-faaaaiiiiilllllll
No, Pretend Doc BASIC, you don’t “get it.” Not even close. Go ahead though and keep proving all my points though….
Once again, the Dok is absolutely spreading falsehoods.
What does “with a mask one at that” mean? You wear multiple ones?
Now he’s inventing some new situation that’s easier to defend against. Scrambling like a pan of eggs here!
Case in point – see his deleted comment.