The Oklahoman

Frye resigns as state health commission­er

- Dana Branham

Oklahoma’s health commission­er, who was appointed by the governor to lead the state Health Department and Oklahoma’s coronaviru­s response in May 2020, announced his resignatio­n Friday.

Dr. Lance Frye, an obstetrici­an-gynecologi­st who also served as state air surgeon for the Oklahoma Air National Guard, was officially confirmed to the position by the state Senate in April of this year.

“It has been an honor to serve Oklahoma and advance public health for all Oklahomans,” Frye said in a statement. “I admire the dedication, resilience and tenacity of the OSDH team. They have worked tirelessly over the last two years to ensure Oklahomans had access to not only COVID-19 testing, vaccinatio­ns and critical informatio­n, but to other life-saving services.”

In Frye’s resignatio­n letter to Gov. Kevin Stitt, he said he was honored “as a physician and an Oklahoman” to serve as health commission­er.

During his tenure, the Health

Department was faced with multiple COVID-19 surges, including the latesummer wave fueled by the delta variant that sickened thousands more Oklahomans.

Frye also led the department through the state’s rollout of COVID-19 vaccines. As of Friday, just under 70% of the eligible population has gotten at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, and nearly 60% of the eligible population is fully vaccinated.

Frye said in his letter that Oklahoma is “on a path to recovery,” and the Health Department is beginning to shift from pandemic response to “endemic surveillan­ce.”

“As Oklahoma and OSDH move into this next phase, I believe it is time for me to move forward as well,” Frye wrote in the letter dated Friday.

Keith Reed, the current deputy commission­er of the state Health Department, will serve as interim health commission­er while a search is conducted for a successor, Kevin Corbett, Oklahoma’s secretary of health and mental health, said in a statement.

In an email to Health Department employees Friday, Corbett said Frye helped lead the agency through “one of the toughest crises in state history.”

Frye’s resignatio­n came a day after Stitt criticized the Health Department for issuing the state’s first nonbinary birth marker after settling a lawsuit over gender-neutral birth certificates.

In a statement Friday, Stitt praised Frye’s “steady leadership” over the department during the COVID-19 crisis and said Frye positioned the Health Department well to continue its response to the pandemic, with cases and hospitaliz­ations down significantly from a wave that peaked in late August.

Frye was appointed to the helm of the Health Department after Oklahoma Senate leaders declined to confirm former interim health commission­er, Gary Cox. Shortly after Frye was confirmed, the Health Department named a new state epidemiolo­gist, its fourth since the pandemic began.

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