what higherups said was poor leadership or a failure to do their job others have complained that they were overworked underpaid unappreciated or thrust into a pressurecooker environment to me a lot of the divisiveness and the stress and the resignations that are happening right and left are the consequence of the lack of a real national response plan said dr matt willis health officer for marin county in northern california and were all left scrambling at the local and state level to extract resources and improvise solutions in a fractured health care system in an underresourced public health system public health leaders from dr anthony fauci down to officials in small communities have reported death threats and intimidation some have seen their home addresses published or been the subject of sexist attacks on social media fauci has said his wife and daughters have received threats in ohio the states health director dr amy acton resigned in june after months of pressure during which republican lawmakers tried to strip her of her authority and armed protesters showed up at her house it was on actons advice that gop gov mike dewine became the first governor to shut down schools statewide acton also called off the states presidential primary in march just hours before polls were to open angering those who saw it as an overreaction the executive director of las animashuerfano counties district health department in colorado found her car vandalized twice and a group called colorado counties for freedom ran a radio ad demanding that her authority be reduced kim gonzales has remained on the job west virginia gov jim justice forced the resignation of public health commissioner dr cathy slemp in june over what he said were discrepancies in the data slemp said the departments work had been hurt by outdated technology like fax machines and slow computer networks we are driving a great aunts pinto when what you need is to be driving a ferrari slemp said tom inglesby director of the center for health security at johns hopkins was critical of slemps firing and said it was deeply concerning that public health officials who told uncomfortable truths to political leaders had been removed thats terrible for the national response because what we need for getting through this first of all is the truth we need data and we need people to interpret the data and help political leaders make good judgments inglesby said since 2010 spending on state public health departments has dropped 16 per capita and the amount devoted to local health departments has fallen 18 according to a khn and ap analysis at least 38000 state and local public health jobs have disappeared since the 2008 recession leaving a skeletal workforce for what was once viewed as one of the worlds top public health systems another sudden departure came monday along the texas border dr jose vazquez the starr county health authority resigned after a proposal to increase his pay from 500 to