Acting Pa. Secretary of Health Alison Beam resigning at year's end

Acting Secretary of Health Alison Beam, who led the state’s occasionally bumpy covid vaccine rollout, will resign at the end of the year, Gov. Tom Wolf announced Monday.

Neither Beam nor Wolf indicated a reason for her departure.

Wolf said he intends to name the department’s executive deputy secretary, Keara Klinepeter, as acting secretary.

Klinepeter said in a statement she intends to make sure “public health remains a top priority throughout the commonwealth.”

Wolf appointed Beam to head the department in January after President Joe Biden tapped former director Dr. Rachel Levine for a federal cabinet position. Beam had previously served as Wolf’s deputy chief of staff. She called her year as health secretary “the most humbling honor of my career.”

“Under the governor’s leadership the administration has made critical strides in ensuring access to health care for all Pennsylvanians and in turn created a healthier, more equitable commonwealth for generations to come,” Beam said.

Beam oversaw the rollout of the covid-19 vaccine, which started off painfully slow – something some other states struggled with as well. The lack of centralized scheduling system in the early days meant many without reliable computer access were left with few options, and pharmacies compiled waiting lists that stretched into the hundreds.

“I am proud to have worked with (Beam) over the past several years, and the commonwealth has been fortunate to have had the benefit of her leadership during the covid-19 pandemic – especially as the Department of Health oversaw a massive vaccine roll-out over the course of the past year,” Wolf said.

Last week, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed a lower court ruling that Beam did not have the authority to issue a mandatory mask mandate for schools in August.

The ruling ends the mandate effective immediately. Going forward, school districts can implement their own masking policies as they see fit.

The court, in a four-sentence order, affirmed a decision by the state Commonwealth Court last month that said Beam did not follow the proper rule-making procedures when she issued the mask requirement for anyone entering a K-12 school building.