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Dr. Clayton Chau, who helped steer OC health care during pandemic, to leave

March 29, 2023

Dr. Clayton Chau will leave his post as director of the OC Health Care Agency as of June 1, and he confirmed in a text message that he submitted his resignation letter Tuesday, March 28.

In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, Chau was selected in May 2020 to head the agency and a month later also took on the role of the county’s health officer as the spread of COVID-19 through Orange County pushed its hospitals and the health system to the edge.

Reached late Tuesday evening he texted that he will be leaving after the federal COVID-19 public health emergency order is set to end and had “no plan at this time” for what’s next.

“We greatly appreciate his service and he will be missed,” county spokeswoman Molly Nichelson said in a text.

Before the arrival of the coronavirus, few people would have been able to name the county’s health officer, but Dr. Nichole Quick soon became a target for criticism among many who objected to mask requirements. After Quick’s resignation in June 2020, Chau became one of the most visible faces in the local pandemic response. When vaccinations became available he was even helping staff mobile clinics to jab as many people as possible.

“When the first person got the vaccine, I was bawling in the back,” he said in a 2020 Orange County Register article about the first day doses of the new vaccination arrived in the county.

He was also the target of complaints about the stay-at-home orders, masking requirements and concerns people would be forced to be vaccinated. In May 2021, the county’s elected leaders denounced protests at his home – Quick had left the post after protests were staged at her home and threats made.

But Chau said in that 2020 article that he was a bit of an odd-man-out among public health officers at the time because he questioned California’s “blanket” lockdown guidance and encouraged finding a balance between precautions to curb the spread and the needs of keeping people working and businesses afloat.

He also said the pandemic provided lessons for health officials about the need to better ensure health care and social services are extended to all corners of a community.

“This pandemic truly tells us the story about how important health equity is,” he said.

Last March the country finally split the public health officer role and OC Health Care Agency director again, naming Dr. Regina Chinsio-Kwong as the new health officer.

Orange County Register

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Dr. Clayton Chau, who helped steer OC health care during pandemic, to leave

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