Dr Amy Acton, the health director who helped Ohio’s Republican governor earn glowing reviews for his pandemic response, has resigned after facing an intense backlash over her role in the state’s lockdown measures.
Acton has been a high-profile figure in Ohio’s early and aggressive fight against the coronavirus, transcending the confines of the laboratory to appear daily on television screens during Governor Mike DeWine’s updates and issuing his administration’s health orders.
“It’s true not all heroes wear capes,” DeWine said at the news briefing at which he made the announcement. “Some of them do, in fact, wear a white coat, and this particular hero’s white coat is embossed with the name Dr Amy Acton.”
While Acton won widespread praise for her steady and detailed assessments of the pandemic, she also faced harsh and sometimes ugly pushback for her orders that contributed to the closing of businesses and kept people home for weeks. That backlash included lawsuits, a legislative effort to strip her of authority, and protests outside her suburban Columbus home that included some people carrying guns.
Some demonstrations at the statehouse featured signs bearing antisemitic messages. Acton is Jewish, and one lawmaker referenced her with an antisemitic slur. More recently, organizers of music festivals and restaurant owners sued her as the slow reopening unfolded.
The tactics used against Acton were not confined to Ohio, but the universal commendations from her peers contrasted perhaps more sharply than anywhere with the vitriol.
DeWine shook the state to attention on 4 March, when he announced at a briefing with Acton that spectators would be banned from an international fitness festival whose visitors bring a lot of money to Columbus each year. The state had yet to confirm a single coronavirus case.
Within a week, and on the advice of Acton, a former public health professor and researcher, he became the first governor to shut down schools statewide.
Acton herself seized national headlines on 17 March when she called off the state’s presidential primary just hours before polls were to open, incensing critics who saw it as an overreaction.
Nearly three months later, the number of confirmed or probable coronavirus cases in the state has topped 40,000, a milestone reached the day of her resignation. An additional 69 deaths were reported on Thursday, state officials said, bringing the total to 2,490.
It might have been worse without the early measures. Ohio – no 7 among states in total population – ranks 19th in coronavirus deaths per 100,000 people and 35th in total virus cases per 100,000 people, according to an AP analysis of Covid Tracking Project data.
House Republicans had sought to restrict her authority just last month. DeWine defended her, saying his fellow Republicans should focus on increasing virus test availability, a $775m budget deficit and reopening the economy.
“I will always believe and know that many lives were saved because of her wise advice,” DeWine said on Thursday.
Democrats rushed to her defense, too, saying Republicans bullied her and turned their backs on her expert advice, and calling her departure “Ohio’s loss”.
“Dr Acton rose above the petty partisan politics that so often dominates Columbus, and she did it with uncommon grace, humility and professionalism,” David Pepper, the state Democratic party chairman, said in an emailed statement. “She became the epitome of a public servant and leader and a role model to so many.”
Acton, who appeared with DeWine at Thursday’s briefing, called her job leading the Ohio department of health the “honor of a lifetime”.
She plans to stay on as senior health adviser to DeWine, she said, and will focus on preparing for the next phase of the pandemic. Coronavirus cases are rising in nearly half the states.
Running the department, handling the pandemic and advising the governor were three jobs, she said, and she wanted to devote her efforts to one area. She also wants to spend more time with her family.
“Ohioans, you have saved lives. You’ve done this,” she said.
Lance Himes, who already served as interim health director and is currently the department’s general counsel, will step back into the role until Acton’s permanent replacement is named, DeWine said.
Associated Press contributed to this report
