Charity Dean

As a public health official in Santa Barbara County, Dean gained experience with containment of infectious disease outbreaks, including meningitis in 2013^[4] and tuberculosis in 2014.^[5] From 2011 through 2014, she was the deputy public health officer for the Santa Barbara County Public Health Department,^[3] and from 2014 through 2018, she was the public health officer for the Santa Barbara County Public Health Department.^[6]

In late 2018,^[7] she became the assistant director of the California Department of Public Health.^[4][8] In January 2020, she began to warn state officials about COVID-19,^[9] based on reports from China,^[10][11] and continued for months.^[4] In April 2020, she was also appointed as co-chair of the California COVID-19 testing task force, which included efforts to expand access to testing.^[12][13] Her work included coordination with elected officials and the White House Coronavirus Task Force.^[14] She left her position as the assistant director of the California Department of Public Health in July 2020,^[8] after submitting her resignation on June 4,^[15] and then began "tweeting news and information, some of which could be seen as a comment on California’s COVID testing and response," according to Deadline in August 2020.^[16]

In July 2020, she was featured in the ABC News 20/20 investigative report American Catastrophe,^[17] and in May 2021, she was featured in a 60 Minutes broadcast about the book The Premonition by Michael Lewis.^[18] She is one of the experts profiled in the book,^[5][10] and named by Lewis as "one of the people who saw the real danger of the virus before the rest of the country did," according to NPR.^[19]

In August 2020, she co-founded The Public Health Company,^[5][1] which has created software to assist the public health community and businesses with managing the risks of infectious disease.^[20] She has also continued to publicly offer her expert opinion about COVID-19 responses^[21][22] and responding to pandemics generally.^[23]

• 2018 Physician of the Year award from the Central Coast Medical Association^[24]
• 2018 Women of the Year recognition from Senator Jackson and Assemblywoman Limon^[2]