Gov. Gavin Newsom at Monday 8/10 press conference. (Photo: screen capture)
Gov. Newsom’s Weird Press Conference; Admits Public Health Director Dr. Sonia Angell Was SJW Hiring
Incompetence or Coincidence: Dr. Angell pushed out right before Monday’s Senate confirmation?
By Katy Grimes, August 10, 2020 4:38 pm
Monday morning Californians woke up to the news that Gov. Gavin Newsom’s appointed Public Health Director resigned, following the news last week of the epic IT data failure that resulted in the supposed undercounting of COVID-19 cases.
Dr. Sonia Angell was only in the position less than a year before she announced her resignation in an email Sunday to her staff. On Monday, despite being asked by several reporters via phone, Newsom would not disclose if he terminated Angell’s employment, but it was clearly obvious that her departure was related to the data “glitch,” and more likely to overall incompetence.
What was so odd is that Gov. Newsom gave an upbeat press conference last Monday Aug. 3, and announced that COVID cases in the state had declined by 21%. The very next day, Newsom was absent from the podium and Dr. Mark Ghaly, California Health and Human Services Agency Secretary, said that the governor’s good news of the 21% decline in COVID “cases” was wrong due to case undercount because of a data “glitch” of the backlogged cases.
The Governor was not seen after last Monday’s press conference when his office revealed the major “glitch” in COVID case data… until this Monday.
The “glitch” supposedly caused up to 295,000 records to be backlogged, but as news reports found, not all of the cases were COVID cases and some will be duplicates, according to Ghaly.
The problem affected the California Reportable Disease Information Exchange, also known as CalREDIE.
And Monday this week, Dr. Angell is out.
It’s not hard to connect some of the dots.
Notably, in Monday’s press conference, Gov. Newsom was asked about Dr. Angell’s “resignation,” implying that she was terminated. Newsom gave the usual disclaimer that he does not discuss personnel issues with the general public… blah, blah, blah.
But Dr. Sonia Angell wasn’t just any state employee – Newsom’s team admitted that she was hired for her social justice activism, despite that it’s been obvious to many practicing physicians she is incompetent. And Dr. Angell was let go or “resigned” right before her scheduled Senate confirmation, coincidentally on Monday.
Dr. Ghaly thanked Dr. Angell for her service and said he appreciated that she was able to “talk and think about ways to close disparities,” and her work the last 7 months of responding to COVID-19. He said “Her smarts around disparities and thinking about inequities” was appreciated, demonstrating language that made it clear she was a social justice warrior, focused on “disparities” and “inequities,” rather than the public health of all California residents.
“We accepted the resignation… appreciated her work… none of this is easy… technology is stubborn…” Newsom said at Monday’s video press conference. He also made note that what he said about Dr. Angell’s departure was all that he was going to say.
Newsom said the backlog was taken care of over the weekend.
Nothing to see here folks. Now move along.
In the broadest sense, a social justice warrior is a person who uses complex serious social, economic and political issues as a way to further their own agenda by claiming they are fighting to “correct a wrong,” according to the Urban Dictionary. Specifically, it is used to refer to people claim to be fighting for social justice but are actually validating their own ego, looking for special treatment, or attention. “Ironically Social justice warriors cause more harm to their causes than good, as they are often ill-informed, are uninterested in discussing issues as they are more interested in being “right,” and attack all who disagree.”
But inquiring minds want to know more. And citizens and taxpayers deserve to know more.
First – why was a social justice warrior appointed to the highest medical position at the California Department of Public Health?
In September 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom announced his appointment of Sonia Angell, MD, MPH as the Director of the California Department of Public Health.
Dr. Angell was a practicing physician at New York Presbyterian Hospital and Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at Columbia University in New York City. Her previous roles included serving as the Deputy Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene where she oversaw the Division of Prevention and Primary Care, as well as serving as the founding director of the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Cardiovascular Disease Prevention and Control Program. Additionally, Dr. Angell was a Senior Advisor for Global Noncommunicable Diseases at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She has also been an independent consultant to the Pan American Health Organization.
Dr. Angell served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal and is a graduate of the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program. She received her medical degree from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and completed her residency at the Brigham Women’s Hospital in Boston. Additionally, she received a diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene from the London School, as well as a Master’s in Public Health from the University of Michigan.
This position requires Senate confirmation and the compensation is $275,650. Angell is a Democrat.
One of the other questions that must be asked is: Why count “cases” – or positive tests – at all? What are the critical metrics? Why isn’t the governor, and his public health officials, focused on hospitalizations and deaths. Because according to the more than 15 physicians, epidemiologists, virologists, and immunologists the Globe has spoken with, the only data that really matters is hospitalizations, ICU cases, and deaths. And these doctors say that the governor and public health officials should only be focusing their efforts on the most vulnerable groups – the elderly, sick, obese and diabetics, and those with other underlying health conditions. Testing the healthy, and making the healthy wear masks on beaches isn’t slowing the spread. Because the spread, in fact, amounts to herd immunity, which is the end goal with a virus.
The only thing the Governor and public health officials have accomplished is destroying the California economy – which perhaps was the goal all along.
TUNE IN NOW. https://t.co/kMjJgK3MWB
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) August 10, 2020
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My first thought when I heard of Dr. Angell’s departure was “Rats deserting the ship”. It’s also unusual for a public official to resign. Usually here in California any incompetent bureaucrat is simply reassigned somewhere else he/she can screw up some where else.
There’s obviously more here than meets the eye with this story and I doubt the local news which has never challenged Gavin Newsom will do any serious digging to get to the bottom of this.
I think part of the problem is Newsom was so desperate to report any good news that he jumped the gun without doing any fact checking, so much for his claim that everything he does is based on science.
It’s also obvious that we are going in the wrong direction, California is nearing bankruptcy, businesses have collapsed and the man in charge continues to get a free pass from our pathetic media. With the exception of California Globe and a tiny few news outlets we’d never know what’s really happening.
Biggest question is will Californians wake up demand change? I’m not going to hold my breath.
I agree 100%.Something is fishy about this whole story and Newsom is a worm ! My fellow Californians are not very smart.
Once again big thanks to Katy and her staff for keeping their feet to the fire!
This whole episode keeps getting stranger & stranger – something is definitely amiss in California….
I AGREE, STOP COUNTING CASES. STOP TESTING HEALTHY PEOPLE. THAT DOESN’T MEAN ANYTHING,. IT JUST SCARES PEOPLE. ANYONE WHO HAS HAD A FLU SHOT OR THE COMMON COLD CAN TEST POSITIVE FOR COVID, WITHOUT BEING SICK THIS INSANITY NEEDS TO STOP. CASES ARE JUST BEING USED TO KEEP THE BUSINESSES CLOSED, DESTROY OUR ECONOMY TO HURT OUR PRESIDENT. IT IN NOT ABOUT A VIRUS, IT IS ALL POLITICAL.
I agree totally. I wish politicians would stop following the herd over fear of dieing from what amounts to the odds from dieing of a cold.
The whole idea is to keep people in fear!!!
I am a little fed up with people treating us as stupid, regarding computing systems.
There is no such thing as a “glitch”. Someone made an error, and that team should be held accountable.
Dr Mark Ghaly went on TV to “explain” to us what happened, without ever telling what really caused the “server outage”. But it certainly explained that they have no systems in place to test for ongoing correct operation (e.g. warning if testing results throughput on any given day are outside of the statistical trend).
Sorry to see Dr Angell go alone, since it is clear there are more people who are barely competent under normal circumstances, let alone to run a mini “nation state” in a public health crisis.
I agree with the doctors, we need to focus on hospitalizations and deaths, taking care of our elderly and forget counting cases. They are meaningless because many recover and are doing well. Thank you Katy for your true journalism.
@ Dan de la Torre. It would be nice it was rats deserting the ship. It’s just a reshuffling of rats. Incompetence is the name of the game when you’re faking a pandemic. They say there were errors. Errors in what?? Testing? Diagnosis? Treatment? Death counts? Mask effectiveness?
Remember, we are talking about a disease that is so deadly we have to be tested to know if we even have it. Error is irrelevant when you’re dealing in a fact free reality. “Error” and “incompetence” are just stalling techniques, excuses to hide behind while Gavin Newsom finishes the job he set out to do… nuking the CA economy. Newsom does not work for the people. Let’s not pretend he does. He never intended to fix any of this.
This IS a bunch of BS!!!! She RESIGNED most likely because she couldn’t stand any more of Newsom’s BS and HIS incompetence. My husband knows the Angell family personally and she is far from what Newsom is accusing her of being.
“You know what Liberals are up to by what they accuse you of doing” ~ Ann Coulter
Exactly, everything they do is what the devil does. From their deflecting what they are doing to the right wing, to the ever so nice names they give their foundations. and propositions The foundations are money laundering and brainwashing the public. Prager is correct, truth is not a left wing value.
Thing is none of these people(?)
are incompetent. They know what they’re doing, and they’re good at it. What they are is performing their duties to advance, secure, , and protect a completely different set of plans that have a completely different objective than their stated plans, and objectives, the public has been led to believe. The public hasn’t the slightest about what their sworn representatives have done towards reaching their objectives that are against the people, no benefit of any kind, and intentionally do harm, infringe, deny the use of, strip the people of, and criminalize the use of our God given Rights and liberties. Man does not “give” rights, and liberties to the people, men can guarantee these rights, and liberties, but man has not the rights to infringe, deny, or strip the God given Rights and liberties of the people. Particularly without due process. These representatives are duty bound to protect these rights and liberties of the people. As they’ve stated they’re doing, and the people still somehow believe is what they’re doing.
They’re not doing this, they’re not even pretending they’re doing it. Instead they serve another master, not the people, and not for a very long time.
Their masters plans, and objectives are the opposite what the people believe. Our beloved Government’s are ignoring due process in all actions against the people, and instead taking unlawful action, criminal action to advance their nefarious treasonous activity.
Lies, distraction, deception, manipulation, military PsyOps, propaganda, censorship, electromagnetic frequencies, and everything in CIA’s bag of dirty tricks. Leadership in this country, blatantly misrepresents itself, it’s plans, , and at times create some big elaborate, complex, and complicated deceptive cover to distract the people’s attention away from the illegal action, and what harm this action is going to do once passed, and signed into law. Once legislation becomes law in this country it’s next to impossible to have it overturned. If a piece of legislation written to deliberately do harm to the people, and/or illegal in nature, that leaders know the people won’t accecpt, is pushed through the Congress behind some dog, and pony show. If the people knew, or discoved this legislation before it’s signed into law. They’d be outraged, Bill’s are easily killed, if the people didn’t kill the polititians caught.
These Government leaders are totally competent, intelligent, resourceful, and effective at doing their job, part of their job is to fool all you people into believing that black is white.
They’re so good at their work, you don’t even know you’re fooled. ALL of you.
Incompetent is not a description I’d use to define them. How many of y’all knows what it’s like to have underestimated an opponent ?
Gavin Newsom is one of the most slippery sons of bitches, ever to slither on earth, sneaky, dirty, low-life, arrogant sociopath, and sinking/talking crime against humanity.
Kamala Harris too.
There is only one qualification for government office in California. Extreme left beliefs, competence be damned.