ADHS Director Cara Christ Stepping Down

 

Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) Director, Dr. Cara Christ, is stepping down from her post. She has been in charge of the department since 2015, including through the pandemic.

She has endorsed virtually every move of the governor's public illness campaign. It hunts down even the smallest effort in the State of Arizona mitigate spread of the virus and kills it via executive order.

I doubt Dr. Christ is a actually member of the conservative death cult, but her boss certainly is and she has been his enabler. One wonders how a public health official like her could stomach endorsing his policies, knowing full well how reckless they are. 

Former ADHS Director Will Humble, who was at one time Christ's mentor, believes she abrogated her responsibility. I agree with what he says:

When you’re linked up with a governor who is pushing you in directions that you fundamentally disagree with, you have a responsibility to do your job, not to keep your job. You may report to the governor, but you work for the people of Arizona.

The resignation announcement came one day after Christ's department issued mask guidance at odds with the governor's position. The governor's office insists there is no link between the two events. Maybe, but it wouldn't be the first time Ducey has fired people who oppose his pandemic ideas. 

In addition to saluting her boss's crazy policies, Christ's pandemic legacy includes two-times when Arizona was the worst place in the world for COVID-19, and overseeing development of a comically bad vaccine reservation system. 

I will give her some credit for actual vaccine administration, which seemed well organized and worked smoothly once you got past the shitty reservation system.  OTOH as far as I know the state has done little to promote vaccines except making them available.

Christ will reportedly become chief medical officer for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona.  Yikes...I have Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona! :-/

Image by ADHS

Popular posts from this blog

Looks Like Immune Responses are Enduring After All

Image
 For some time, public health officials have fretted about whether immunity to COVID-19, acquired via infection or vaccination would stick.  Studies showed rapid declines in antibodies during recovery from infection and thereafter . It turns out that this concern was overblown. A study just released says bone marrow plasma cells are a persistent source of protective antibodies, and that "circulating resting memory B cells directed against the S protein were detected in the convalescent individuals."   Another study , yet to be reviewed, suggests that vaccines boost this effect. In fact, some are suggesting this situation this could actually mean  lifetime immunity .   Whether the same thing happens with vaccination is not clear. Most estimates suggest that vaccine immunity will last about a year . More pessimistic estimates putting the protection period at six months .  The possible shorter time frame, plus the appearance of the new variants, have the vaccine makers working
Read more

Another One Bites the Dust

Image
Hi all. Stepping out of retirement for a moment to say that the day has finally arrived. After four years of successfully avoiding COVID-19 infection I had a positive test yesterday. Symptoms are very mild—I've had worse colds. The provider at urgent care said almost all the cases they are seeing are the same. Mild symptoms may also be due to the fact that I had the original vaccine then the two boosters. All this time I thought I might be a NOVID —one of those people who never get the bug. But no, it must have been my assiduous mask wearing and avoidance of high-risk situations when things were bad. So here's double middle fingers to all the kooks who think masks don't work (I've not been wearing masks for months now). I don't know what variant I have but it's likely JN.1. It is said to be extraordinarily contagious and accounts for 60% of cases worldwide . It also tends to produce mild infections like the one I have.  This article claims that right now every
Read more

AZ Pandemic Numbers Summary for the Seven Days Ending November 9: Everything is Going South

Image
Here are the Arizona pandemic numbers and graph of statewide cases for the seven day period ending yesterday: Well this isn't good. The lull seems to be over. Virtually every number is up, both over a week and over four weeks. The most worrisome is hospital beds, which have been steadily trending up over the last several weeks.  Wastewater signals are all up except Tempe (dashboard is up again) which after going up last week (from 41 to 100) decreased by about 10%. The increases are worrisome because the latest data from ASU's Lim Lab (last updated October 31), where they sequence PCR samples to identify variants, shows that only about 46% of sequences showed BA.5. That is one of the Omicron variants the new bivalent vaccine was designed to protect against.  All the rest of the samples are BA.2.75 (7.7%), which I flagged several weeks ago, and BQ,1.1 (15.4%), and BQ.1 (30.8%), both of which I blogged about a couple weeks ago.  Those, new research confirms , are much more lik
Read more