Q & A: Northeast Ohio Health Leaders Face Ugly Threats Over COVID-19 Orders

Even from the early days of the pandemic, many Ohio public health officials found themselves in a new place: the public spotlight, and some of them, the firing line. Many Northeast Ohio public health officials have faced harsh criticism and even death threats for asking people to get vaccinated and wear masks. The former Geauga County Health Commissioner is considering legal action after losing his job over this issue. All Things Considered Host Tony Ganzer spoke with Ideastream Public Media's Anna Huntsman about this.

Before the pandemic, the work of local health departments was largely done behind the scenes - you can think of food safety inspections, water quality monitoring and smoking cessation. But the pandemic seems to have changed things.

Northeast Ohio health officials tell me they’ve received immense pushback and even harassment, which has resulted in staff being burnt out and even quitting their jobs.

In Geauga County, former Health Commissioner Tom Quade was actually fired last week after residents packed a board of health meeting and called for his termination. There’s a Facebook group with about 220 members criticizing him for what they say is coercive guidance, like recommending schools require masks.

The tipping point for the group was a post Quade wrote on his private Facebook account, which reads: “ Here's an incentive idea for encouraging vaccination: If you get vaccinated, and get Covid, you pay nothing for your medical treatment costs. If you're not vaccinated (or don't have a medical contraindication for getting vaccinated), your insurance pays NOTHING for your medical treatment. It's a natural consequence of your decisions.”

The health board decided to terminate Quade.

What does Quade have to say about all this?

Quade told me his Facebook post was “tongue in cheek,” and there was nothing in his company’s handbook that says staff can’t express their political and personal views, he said. The backlash was unsurprising, Quade said, because he and his department have received complaints throughout the pandemic.

“Initially, it was – ‘COVID is a hoax,’ and we haven’t gotten so much of those as the overreach of government with mandates and things like that,” Quade said. “It’s disturbing because it really highlighted the fact that the public generally doesn’t understand what we do, and even more importantly, how we do what we do.”

Did officials receive any serious threats? Every threat is serious, but we're talking over the top.

While Quade never received explicit death threats, people left voicemails saying phrases like “keep it up, and see what happens” and threatening that they know where he lives, he said. Quade, who resides in Summit County, said someone even publicized his property records.

“I’m glad that we live an hour away because I was concerned about my wife’s safety,” Quade said. “When they start talking about things that relate to other people, those things made me very, very anxious.”

Over the summer, Quade said he contacted the county sheriff and prosecutor after a particularly threatening phone call, but the threat was determined too unspecific to investigate or prosecute, he said.

Quade may consider taking legal action over his termination in the future, but one thing is for certain - he does not want his job back, he said.

"I have a hard time imagining how that would end productively," Quade said.

Quade isn’t the only local health leader who has faced harassment. Just last week, Tuscarawas County Health Commissioner Katie Seward took an unusual step and wrote an open letter on the health department’s Facebook page saying she and her family have been threatened and harassed.  Her character has been torn down and ridiculed, she said in the letter, and it is tearing her up emotionally.

Seward declined to be interviewed for this story.

It’s not just local officials who have had to deal with this. At the national level, Dr. Anthony Fauci has been, in some circles, considered a villain. And look at what happened with Dr. Amy Acton, who was the state’s health director during Ohio’s Stay-At-Home order - she had a Facebook fan club at one point, but that fame she gained doing those almost daily briefing eventually turned ugly.

Right, she faced a lot of backlash, and at one point, protestors even showed up at her house – and that’s a big reason why she eventually stepped down from her role. The person selected to fill the role, Dr. Joan Duwve, withdrew from the position after finding out about all the threats Acton received.

We’ve heard hospital officials say health care workers are leaving the workforce at alarming rates because of the mental toll the pandemic has taken on them. I’d imagine the backlash on health departments has made an impact on employees there as well.

I also spoke with Donna Skoda, Health Commissioner in Summit County. Like Quade and Seward, she has been subject to criticism and name-calling – like being called a child abuser for recommending kids wear masks in school, she said. A recent Nordonia School Board meeting got out of hand, as many parents came to protest the school’s mask requirement and interrupted health department staff when they would speak about the guidance, Skoda said.

“I think we’ve gotten to a point where folks can’t be rational about this anymore,” Skoda said. “Which is really unfortunate, because we need to solve this for our kids.”

Her department has seen about a 10 percent turnover since the pandemic began, as a result of the stress of dealing with public backlash, she said.

“We talk to the people, and then they die, so we know how awful it is,” she said. “So, when we try to say that in words, folks think we’re just lying to them and we’re not. It can be ugly, and it has been ugly.”

The department has had to rely on a staffing agency from the state to help replace some nurses. The turnover problem is even worse in rural counties, which get less funding and have staffing challenges in general, Skoda said.

In Cuyahoga County, health department staff have faced criticism as well, but they are "hanging in there," said Health Commissioner Terry Allan.

“We have had some flack, but you know, I think our folks are made of steel," Allan said. "We’re tired, but we’re going to continue pressing forward, and we’re going to grind it out.”

This is not the first time public health officials have born the brunt of criticism over a health issue, Skoda added. The last time it was at this level was when Ohio banned smoking in restaurants and bars, she said.

“It appears as though we’re the ones that are always telling people what to do, when in fact we’re trying to keep things safe for everyone," Skoda said. "We try to tell them what to do to keep people safe, but they want to do something else, so it immediately becomes that ... we’re bad, because we're trying to take away rights, or we're trying to be in control.” 

Skoda and Quade agree that the length of this health crisis is what sets this vitriol above the rest. The longer the pandemic has gone on, the angrier people have become, they said.