The chief architect of Chicago’s COVID-19 response will start a brand new function subsequent 12 months on the federal authorities’s public well being company following the firing of Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s former chief well being officer earlier this 12 months by Mayor Brandon Johnson.
Dr. Allison Arwady, who headed the Chicago Division of Public Well being, will develop into a director on the US Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention and head the company’s Nationwide Middle for Damage Prevention and Management.
Arwady tried to maintain her job as Chicago’s public well being commissioner beneath Johnson, but it surely was let go in August, as the brand new mayor, who took workplace in Could, fired a number of Lightfoot administration officers.
“She has led the town well being division by means of the COVID-19 pandemic and has completed so exceptionally properly,” a CDC spokesperson stated. “Dr. Arwady is acknowledged nationally for her management and powerful communication expertise, that are pivotal to the function she’s going to assume.
She’s going to begin work in January.
Arwady’s former place stays vacant on a everlasting foundation, as Johnson has appointed an interim commissioner, Vikirti Wagao, who continues to guide the division by means of the mayor’s first price range negotiations.
Arwady’s sacking was one among Johnson’s most notable private strikes throughout his first six months in workplace.
she He has develop into a family identify in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, offering common updates on the variety of optimistic instances reported and particulars about altering public well being restrictions. She additionally supervised and defined the launch of vaccination efforts within the metropolis How can individuals higher shield themselves from an infection.
However Arwady has additionally been criticized in some quarters for being too hasty in easing pandemic restrictions, particularly in reopening public colleges. Chicago Academics Union leaders, who supported Johnson’s mayoral bid, supported her removing in Chicago.
Arwadi too It conflicts with activists’ calls for for environmental permits and psychological well being providers.
Johnson is following by means of on his election promise to reopen closed psychological well being clinics, a transfer Arwady opposed. His price range plan, which nonetheless wants Metropolis Council approval, calls for 2 psychological well being “pilot” clinics to be established in current CDPH workplaces whereas areas for everlasting clinics are explored.
Arwady pushed for the enlargement of psychological well being providers all through the town and the “Household Connects” program, which supplies residence nursing visits for newborns. She was additionally the driving drive behind Lightfoot’s environmental justice govt order on the finish of her time period.
Arwady, a board-certified doctor and pediatrician, got here to the Division of Well being in 2015 as chief medical officer, and was confirmed as commissioner in January 2020 — the identical month the primary instances of COVID-19 have been detected in america. She beforehand labored on the CDC and helped with the worldwide response to the Ebola outbreak in Liberia.
She holds levels from Harvard, Columbia and Yale, in accordance with the town Well being Division web site.
ayin@chicagotribune.com
