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When President Biden announced in January that he would make Wisconsin's top health official his No. 2 at the Department of Health and Human Services, the state seemed like a poor model for the nation's most crucial public health priority: fighting the pandemic.
Wisconsin had just come through a surge more intense than New York City's, and it ranked near the bottom of states in bringing a first dose of vaccine to its residents. Only about a third of doses sent to the state had been administered. The grim numbers galvanized Republicans in Wisconsin to take aim at a familiar target, state health secretary-designate Andrea Palm, whom they had refused to confirm since 2019, denying her symbolic authority even as the coronavirus gripped the state.