Here’s what Mecklenburg’s retiring health director says about COVID, and what’s next
Gibbie Harris’ first days as Mecklenburg’s top public health official were in a health department embroiled in scandal.
Her last days will be in a department leading one of the state’s largest counties through a once-in-a-century pandemic.
Harris announced her retirement Wednesday night at the Board of County Commissioners meeting. Deputy Health Director Dr. Raynard Washington will succeed her as director.
Harris will stay on as health director through the end of the year. Washington will take over at the start of 2022, the county announced.
In an interview with the Observer Thursday, Harris reflected on her time as the health director.
A recovering health department
Harris, who grew up in nearby Statesville, has been one of the most powerful people in Mecklenburg in the last 17 months, guiding the county through the unfolding COVID-19 pandemic. But she never planned to stay long at the Mecklenburg department.
Harris had previously retired from county government in 2015 after leading Buncombe County Public Health.
She took over at Mecklenburg County Public Health after previous Health Director Marcus Plescia resigned. Plescia faced public scrutiny after the Observer first reported the agency failed to notify 185 women about their risk for cervical cancer following abnormal Pap smears.
In her first statement after taking the job in 2017, Harris pledged to work to restore the agency’s credibility in the wake of the scandal.
“That was really the plan in the beginning,” she told the Observer Thursday. “To give the department time to get back on its feet and to get in a better place. I had already retired once so there was not a long-term plan for me to be here.”
That’s why she feels ready to move on now.
“We’re at a point with the department where we’re in much better shape than we were,” she said. “...And we’ve got Dr. Washington in place to take over... It’s just a good time for it. And it’s time for me to spend more time with my family.”
COVID-19 leadership
Under Harris’ recommendations, Mecklenburg County was one of the first counties in North Carolina to issue a stay-at-home order in late March 2020, days before the state followed suit.
One of the biggest challenges of leading a public health department as COVID-19 hit NC has been the “ever-evolving state of the pandemic,” especially in regard to changing guidelines and recommendations, Harris said.
“We just want to be transparent,” she said. “We just want to make sure that people understand and have the information that they need. And when that’s constantly changing, it’s a little frustrating.”
Harris has pushed the state to share more data and information with the local department, sometimes sharing frustration with limited statewide data at news conferences throughout the last 17 months.
“The new systems that were created didn’t always give us all the data we felt like we needed to be able to paint a picture here in the county,” Harris said. “And we’ve constantly pushed for that, and will continue to do that.”
Harris has urged mask wearing and social distancing in Mecklenburg County, sometimes criticizing local businesses who were highlighted on social media in the summer of 2020 for the crowds returning to bars with little to no mask wearing.
Though much has returned to close to normal in the Charlotte area, with local businesses open at full capacity, she still worries about the pandemic. Vaccination levels in Mecklenburg have not risen as quickly as she would like — especially as cases of the more contagious Delta variant climb.
“We’re watching this Delta variant very closely,” she said. “And the fact that we have not vaccinated more people, a higher percentage of our population, those two things together are worrisome.
“That’s probably the biggest issue right now,” she added.
Still, Mecklenburg’s COVID-19 trends have been good — “the best our numbers have been,” she said.
The two week average of coronavirus hospitalizations are at an all-time low, county data released Friday shows. There were 46 people with COVID-19 in hospital care in Mecklenburg on Wednesday, compared to 565 one day in early January.
Still, Harris urged Mecklenburg residents to get the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as possible.
“I’m just hoping that our community continues to step up and we get more people vaccinated because that’s going to be our way out of this.”
Looking back
In her time at the top public health job for Mecklenburg County, Harris said she is especially proud of building a strong leadership team for the department.
And she said the agency has taken “significant strides” in its service at clinics. During her time in Mecklenburg, Harris implemented an Initiative to work to prevent the spread of HIV, along with developing a Community HIV Prevention Plan, according to the county.
The county launched a pilot program in 2018 to distribute PrEP, the Observer reported at the time. PrEP is a drug that reduces the risk of getting HIV from sex by about 99%, according to the CDC.
The program launched after criticism from commissioners and LGBTQ advocates that the county wasn’t moving fast enough to distribute the drug as HIV infections rose.
The county is now seeing good numbers in the PrEP program, Harris said.
Collaboration has been key in her time as health director, Harris said. The department has strong ties with the city, with community partners and with faith organizations.
“My staff is just constantly doing good work,” she said. “And I’m just so proud of them and all of the efforts.. It’s been a productive four years. And then our staff’s response to COVID has just been phenomenal.”
Plans for retirement
Harris never expected to be dealing with a global pandemic after taking over the Mecklenburg health department.
“We’ve known that it’s always been a possibility,” she said. “...I had not thought that this would happen within my time here, but you just never know. And public health always tries to be prepared to address whatever comes because a lot of this stuff is not things we can totally plan for.”
Now, Harris is looking forward to moving back to her permanent home in Asheville at the end of December. That’s where her husband, Chuck, lives, and her daughter and grandkids are nearby.
It’s been hard to be separated from family during the pandemic, she said.
Early on in the pandemic, while working weekends and long days at the health department, she wasn’t able to go home for months at a time.
Harris and her husband hope to travel more after she retires. “We’ve got a little bit of a bucket list, and we’ll work through some of those things,” she said.
But she has a few more months to figure out what to do with her retirement.
Until then, Harris plans to continue working closely with her successor, Washington, who joined the health department in March 2020, just one day after the county declared a local state of emergency.
“When he came in the early days of the pandemic, we sort of threw him in feet first and he has excelled in everything I’ve asked him to do,” she said. “He’s a good fit.”
This story was originally published July 9, 2021 at 2:54 PM.
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