NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — Dr. Dave Chokshi will be honored with a walkout ceremony at the Department of Health in Long Island City on his final day as health commissioner Monday, after leading New York City's pandemic effort for over a year and a half.
Chokshi stayed on as commissioner ahead of Eric Adams' inauguration amid then-surging omicron cases to ensure a "seamless transition."
He will be succeeded by epidemiologist Dr. Ashwin Vasan. The public health expert from Columbia University had served as Adams' senior adviser for public health in the interim.
Ahead of Chokshi's final day, he told WABC 7 that "it's hard not to get emotional" reflecting on what the public went through during the pandemic.
"The stress and the grief and the trauma that everyone has gone through in their own way, so it's hard not to get emotional when you think about all those effects and the loss that so many people have experienced," he said.
Chokshi told CBS 2 that he plans to continue practicing medicine at NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue while spending more time with his family.
"I'm looking forward to spending some more time with my family, taking care of my patients, and you know, I didn't expect this job to come to me when it did, so we'll see what the universe has in store for me next," he said.
