San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie has selected an experienced Medicaid manager, Daniel Tsai, to be the city’s new director of public health.
He takes on the role as the city is seeking to create more substance abuse and mental health treatment locations and programs, and as two different strains of bird flu are circulating around the nation. A child in the city was diagnosed with one of the strains in January and made a full recovery without needing hospitalization.
Tsai must also contend with uncertainty about federal funding for public health, as the Trump administration seeks to freeze federal grants, which in the past have been used for a variety of health-related purposes in the city.
Tsai previously served at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as its head of Medicare and Medicaid Services. Before that, he was the Medicaid director for the state of Massachusetts. He previously worked for McKinsey & Company, a consulting firm.
He was unanimously nominated to the position by the San Francisco Health Commission, according to a press release from the mayor’s office.
Tsai said in a statement that he was honored to be appointed.
“I am committed to collaborating with the community to ensure every individual and family we serve can access and receive world-class healthcare and outcomes,” Tsai said.
“This is all the more urgent given the opioid and homelessness crisis, and I look forward to partnering with stakeholders and individuals with lived experience to find new, data-driven approaches to tackling this important challenge compassionately and effectively,” he said.
Lurie said in a statement that he was excited to bring Tsai’s experience to the city.
“It’s going to take creativity, compassion, and collaboration to tackle the city’s drug crisis, and that’s exactly what Dan Tsai brings to the table. Dan’s experience is broad, but his commitment to patients and communities is clear throughout,” Lurie said.
Today I named Dan Tsai as the new Director of @SF_DPH. With over 20 years of experience transforming health care at the state and federal level, Dan is the leader we need to tackle our city’s public health challenges.
— Daniel Lurie 丹尼爾·羅偉 (@DanielLurie) February 11, 2025
I look forward to his leadership in driving creative,… pic.twitter.com/4a1pCOZGsh
The appointment came a day before Lurie signed his fentanyl emergency ordinance into law, which was passed 10-1 by the Board of Supervisors and will allow the city to speed the process it uses to contract services for substance abuse and mental health needs. It will also let the city tap private donors for that effort.
The nation is also facing an outbreak of two different types of avian flu, including a new strain, H5N5, that was detected in a duck at a farm in Merced County in late January. The farm was quarantined, and 120,000 ducks were killed as a preventative measure.
Another strain, H5N1, was detected last year in multiple other states at dairy and poultry farms, causing thousands of farm animals to be killed for prevention. There have not yet been any human-to-human infections in the U.S., according to the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health.
The Trump administration’s pause on grants was blocked by a federal judge this week, but the administration is appealing.
Dr. Laurie Green, president of the city’s Health Commission, said Tsai’s experience would be important as the landscape shifts.
“Dan is eminently qualified to navigate an uncertain environment while maintaining the quality DPH programs San Franciscans rely upon, Green said in a statement.
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