Howard Zucker
Howard A. Zucker (born September 6, 1959) served as the 16th commissioner of the New York State Department of Health from 2015-2021. He was appointed to the position by Governor Andrew Cuomo in 2015 and had served as Acting Commissioner the prior year after the abrupt resignation of Dr. Nirav Shah. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he appeared frequently in media as the ultimate expert on the status of the pandemic in the State of New York. In January 2021, the New York Attorney General’s office released a report showing that the New York Department of Health  under-counted statewide nursing home deaths by as much as 50%. Both Governor Cuomo and Zucker were blamed for the under-count. During the presidency of George W. Bush, Zucker was a White House Fellow and latter Deputy Assistant Secretary of Health in the Department of Health and Human Services under Tommy Thompson. Afterwards, he served as the assistant Director-General of the World Health Organization.