Dr. Ngozi Ezike, who helped guide the state’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak, will leave her post as Illinois’ top public health official days after the second anniversary of a pandemic being declared, a significant departure as Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration attempts to move on from coronavirus restrictions.
Ezike joined the administration in early 2019 as director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, typically a low-profile, bureaucratic role. But she became a familiar — and, for many, calming — presence on TV and computer screens in homes across Illinois in spring 2020 as she appeared with Pritzker at his daily briefings during the early days of the pandemic.
“I ran for office; she did not. But throughout the crisis she has stood by me every step of the way,” Pritzker said Tuesday during a news conference at Rush University Medical Center to mark the end of his statewide mask mandate. “I am not putting it lightly when I say that she has had one of the hardest jobs in the world.”
As a public face of Pritzker’s coronavirus response, Ezike provided a dose of empathy along with the day’s grim statistics and repeated pleas for social distancing, mask wearing and hand-washing. The governor came to rely on her not just for medical guidance but also for help communicating with Spanish-speaking Illinois residents.
There was perhaps no better display of Ezike’s sincerity than a news conference in October 2020, early in the state’s second COVID-19 surge, when she began to cry and briefly paused her remarks as she encouraged Illinois residents to “fight the fatigue” and keep doing their part to slow the virus.
“I have watched Dr. Ezike mourn the loss of every one of the more than 32,000 Illinoisans who have died from COVID-19,” Pritzker said Tuesday. “No number of sleepless nights and endless days could wear down her commitment to think first and foremost of Illinois’ most vulnerable.”
The governor said he is “loath to accept” Ezike’s departure, which takes effect March 14, but hopes the doctor will be able to get “a good night’s sleep and precious time with her husband and her four kids.”
Ezike wiped away tears as Pritzker designated March 1 “Dr. Ngozi Ezike Day.” She received a standing ovation from Rush workers attending the news conference.
“I am so blessed to have been able to bring some measure of comfort to Illinoisans, to quiet some of the chaos and to infuse some calm,” Ezike said. “I’m proud to be an example that empathy and strength can exist in the same body and in the same breath.
“I’m glad that I served as a role model to young girls, girls of color, little Black girls, that they can be leaders in any field,” said Ezike, the first Black woman to lead the state’s public health department. “And I’m proud to show our young boys, as well, the future men of our society, examples of women in leadership.”
Before being named public health director in 2019, Ezike was medical director at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center. Ezike, a board-certified internist and pediatrician, earned her medical degree at the University of California at San Diego.
She took the top job at the Department of Public Health after the agency had come under scrutiny for its role in handling a deadly outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease at a veterans home in downstate Quincy during Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration. Under Ezike, the agency again faced tough questions from lawmakers, particularly Republicans, about how it addressed a coronavirus outbreak that tore through the state veterans home in LaSalle in November 2020.
Ezike’s assistant director, Amaal Tokars, will take over as interim director. Tokars, who is not a medical doctor, has a Ph.D. in leadership and policy from Northern Illinois University and was previously the director of the Kendall County Health Department and president of the Northern Illinois Public Health Consortium.
Ezike was not without her detractors as decisions over confronting the pandemic divided Illinois and the rest of the nation, and frequently became a target of scorn for those who believed the governor was overstepping his authority by issuing orders that curbed personal freedoms in an effort to slow the virus.
Republican state Sen. Darren Bailey of Xenia, a candidate in the GOP primary for governor who mounted an unsuccessful legal challenge of Pritzker’s COVID-19 restrictions, called Ezike’s departure “good news for students, businesses, and people across Illinois” in a message on his campaign Twitter account.
The announcement that Ezike is leaving came as the number of COVID-19 patients in Illinois hospitals had dropped below 1,000 the past three days for the first time since early August, before Pritzker reinstated the statewide mask mandate.
As of Monday night, there were 958 COVID-19 patients in the state’s hospitals, down from 3,805 at the end of January and from an all-time high of 7,380 on Jan. 12.
State health officials reported 40 more fatalities Tuesday, bringing the average daily number of deaths over the past week to 53. The statewide death toll stood at 32,803 since the beginning of the pandemic.
At Tuesday’s news conference, Ezike thanked her family including her husband and daughter, who attended Tuesday’s event, “for tolerating the absences, the last-minute changes in plans, the endless multitasking and the ever-present cellphones.”
“Now, it’s time to make you my priority and give back a portion of the encouragement and support that you have lavished on me,” Ezike said.
Julie Pryde, administrator of the Champaign-Urbana Public Health Department, thanked Ezike for working closely with local health departments during the pandemic. As Pryde got choked up about the toll the pandemic has taken on her community, Ezike rushed up to hand Pryde a tissue.
“That’s so typical,” Pryde said. “I’m struggling, I’m on the verge of tears in front of everyone, and who comes to the rescue? Dr. Ezike.”
Ezike said she has “no announcements at all in terms of what the next steps are,” but told the Tribune during a brief interview after her formal remarks that she’s “excited of the unknown.”
“I know that Illinois will be in good stead, with me or without me,” Ezike said. “But I’m excited to embark upon a new chapter.”
dpetrella@chicagotribune.com
cspaulding@chicagotribune.com
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