CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Last month, Gov. Roy Cooper announced Health Secretary Dr. Mandy Cohen would be stepping down at the end of the year. This week, after more than 150 press briefings during the pandemic, she participated in her last.
Cohen has been North Carolina’s top doctor for the last 5 years, leading the state through the most challenging public health crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic.
WCNC Charlotte’s Chloe Leshner spoke one-on-one with Dr. Cohen as she wraps up her time with the Department of Health and Human Services.
Dr. Cohen started the job in 2017 but it wasn’t until March 2020 that she became a household name.
“At every turn trying to make really, really hard decisions that changed the way people lived their lives. It was really, really challenging,” Cohen told WCNC Charlotte.
From the original lockdown, to supply chain issues, slowly reopening and rolling out vaccines, Dr. Cohen guided the state’s response. She delivered the message calmly and clearly, even though she said she didn’t always feel that way.
“There was no decision that we didn’t agonize over and deliberate over,” she said.
She said she’s proud of the work they’ve done but that the team has also learned a lot of valuable lessons.
“The other part of what we need to continue to do more of is think about equity at the start of the work, not as a reaction to seeing disparity,” Cohen said. “But actually build it in from the jump, from day one.”
Like so many others, the pandemic has taken a toll on her personally. Cohen has two daughters, a 7- and 9-year-old, whose lives were also turned upside down.
“For the first six months or so I didn’t have a meal with the family. That was a major change in our life as someone who prided herself on trying to get home for dinner every night,” Cohen said.
She shared her family’s reason for getting them vaccinated once it was available to their age group.
As she steps away, she hopes to keep her family in North Carolina and continue to work in the health space. But she says she doesn’t plan to run for public office.
“It’s very flattering that folks are asking that because I hope it means that I have built trust and built rapport with people of North Carolina,” she said. “I have learned so much about the state not just in the pandemic but over the last 5 years of the work we’ve been doing to build a healthier state. I feel like I am from North Carolina now and I am not originally.”
Cohen’s final message to North Carolinians as she leaves, and omicron spreads rapidly is to get vaccinated and boosted.
The next health secretary will be Kody Kinsley. He starts on Jan. 1. Cohen said he was her right hand during the pandemic and that he is qualified for the job.