Newsom says California coronavirus data is correct after administration shake-up

SACRAMENTO – Responding to one of California’s biggest setbacks since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday said his administration has fixed a public health computer database failure that distorted test results across the state and raised doubts about actions taken to stem the spread of coronavirus.

Newsom faced reporters for the first time since he touted the inaccurate data as a positive sign of fewer infections a day before the glitches became public.

The governor said he was unaware of the problem, even though state health officials warned counties about data issues days earlier.

On Sunday, the state announced the abrupt departure of Dr. Sonia Angell, the director of the California Department of Public Health, the agency in charge of collecting the electronic test results.

“These things are unfortunate, but we are moving forward,” Newsom told reporters during a news briefing Monday in Sacramento. “I’m governor. The buck stops with me.”

Newsom declined to say whether he asked Angell to resign and sidestepped a question about her leadership of the agency during the pandemic. He said he felt it was appropriate to accept her resignation.

“She resigned. She wrote a resignation letter, and I accepted her resignation,” Newsom said. “We’re all accountable in our respective roles for what happens underneath us.”

Newsom blamed the issues with the California Reportable Disease Information Exchange, or CALREDIE, on the state’s archaic technology systems and cited similar processing delays and problems at the Department of Motor Vehicles and the state Employment Development Department, which has faced sharp criticism for failing to process unemployment insurance applications filed by millions of out-of-work Californians.

The governor said replacing those systems is one of this administration’s top priorities.

Rob Stutzman, a Republican consultant and former communications director to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said Newsom’s explanation Monday on the data failure and Angell’s departure fell far short of the public accountability Californians deserve.

“It took him a week to stand in front of Californians and address this issue,” Stutzman said. “... He owes a better explanation of the Sunday night massacre that led to her departure.”

Dr. Mark Ghaly, California’s health and human services director, said between 250,000 and 300,000 test results had not been uploaded to the database, and that the malfunction began July 25. Ghaly said all of those problems have been fixed, all backlogged test results have been processed, and that the findings had been shared with county health officials across the state.

To ensure that the state doesn’t experience similar breakdowns, computing capacity was increased fourfold at CALREDIE, the electronic disease reporting and surveillance system overseen by the California Department of Public Health, Ghaly said.