Five years after the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a global pandemic, Dr. Sara Cody — the Santa Clara County public health officer who led the Bay Area’s regional response to the respiratory virus, gaining both national praise and criticism for her orders — is announcing her retirement.
It’s a decision that Cody called “extraordinarily difficult,” having spent nearly all of her career at the county, a place she emphasized that she loves and to which she feels deeply connected. But after wrestling with the decision for some time, she said she’s ready to pass the baton — for the simple reason that life is short.
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“We never know whether we have another four days or another 40 years, and my entire adult working life has been here at the county and maybe there’s something else I want to think about or explore,” she said in an interview. “I don’t have any specific plans other than to read, write and spend time with people I love who I haven’t been able to spend that much time with in a long time.”
A Palo Alto native, Cody joined the Public Health Department in July 1998 as a communicable disease controller and deputy health officer. In 2013, she was promoted to county health officer, and two years later she added director of the public health department to her title. Her last day in that role will be April 11.
In her early days at the county, Cody helped plan for potential bioterrorism threats, conducted investigations on outbreaks and played a role in the response to infectious diseases like SARS and the H1N1 swine flu. As county health officer and public health director, she grew the department from a $101 million budget with 454 employees in 2015 to a $240 million budget with 768 employees in 2022.
In 2020, Cody was thrust into the national spotlight as the then-novel coronavirus became an emerging public health threat.
While many local residents view the anniversary of the onset of the COVID pandemic as mid-March — around the time the WHO gave the virus pandemic status and Bay Area health officials told nearly 7 million residents they needed to stay home — the anniversary comes earlier for Cody.
“By late January, our emergency operations were fully activated, and we had a case reported and we were sprinting already,” she said.
Santa Clara County reported its first COVID case on Jan. 31, 2020. The first death from COVID in the county — and the nation — would happen less than a week later on Feb. 6, though that wouldn’t be discovered for several more months.
March 9, 2020, is one of the early days of the pandemic that stands out to Cody. Just hours after the county reported what it thought at the time was the first COVID death, she issued an order to ban gatherings of more than 1,000 people.
SAN JOSE, CA – MARCH 16: Dr. Sara Cody, Santa Clara County Public Health Officer, speaks during a press conference on March 16, 2020, in San Jose. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)
“I believe that was the first time that I or even anyone else in the county had issued a population-wide order — something that had applied to everyone in the county,” she said. “That was a fairly momentous day.”
But Cody, like many other health officers across the state, faced backlash from critics who balked at masking mandates and accused the county of being too slow to reopen. The Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office investigated threats made against Cody and at least one individual was charged.
Cody has repeatedly defended the public health orders she’s issued. In June 2020, she told The Mercury News that “you can never bring someone back if they died. But if you can find the money, you can help someone who lost a business or a job. It’s extraordinarily difficult, but there is a way forward. Once you’re dead, there is no way forward.”
Cody said in the interview that she doesn’t believe there was anything she would have differently in the last 26 years. How the county responded to the pandemic is one of the proudest moments of her career.
“I can’t tell you how much gratitude I feel, and how many times serendipity landed me in the right place,” she said.
Cody said she joined the county under the mentorship of former public health officer Marty Fenstersheib following her postdoctoral fellowship as an epidemic intelligence service officer with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than two decades later, Fenstersheib would come out of retirement to help Cody as she led the county through the pandemic.
“I don’t know anybody else who had their Marty with them,” she said. “I can’t imagine having to make the sort of decisions that I was making without the level of support that I had.”
In a statement, County Executive James Williams called Cody an “exceptional public servant who has served our county with distinction and a deep commitment to our community.”
“Her proactive leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic saved many lives,” he said. “Her focus on health equity and outcomes has made our Public Health Department more responsive to community needs. As a nationally recognized expert, she leaves a legacy of excellence in public service and has set a new standard for what public health leadership looks like in our country.”
In 2023, Cody took a nine-month sabbatical so she could participate in a fellowship at Stanford University’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. During that time, she began working on her memoir, which will explore the decisions she made during the early days of the pandemic, according to the Stanford Report.
Since returning to her job at the county last fall, Cody has worked to finish a few projects and finalize her last budget proposal. As she exits for retirement, the country could be facing yet another emerging public health threat with bird flu. At the same time, the Trump administration has clamped down on information coming out of health agencies, and the FDA recently cancelled a vaccine advisory committee meeting where the strains for next season’s flu shots would be selected.
“We have to be patient and play the long game,” she said when asked if she had any advice for her successor. “We are going to be here serving the people of Santa Clara County long after this federal administration is gone. But we also have to sometimes act quickly and definitively because we are aware if the rubber hits the road and if we don’t find a way to ensure that people are protected, nobody else is going to.”
