The state’s top vaccinations official was suddenly terminated on Monday.

Alongside several other southern and midwestern states, Tennessee is currently lagging behind the majority of the United States in the COVID-19 vaccination effort, with only around 38% of its populace fully vaccinated against the disease. This is becoming more worrying as the more contagious Delta variant becomes the dominant strain of the disease, with 99.5% of recent COVID deaths being in unvaccinated individuals. However, at this critical time, the state seems to have gone out of its way to halt vaccination outreach rather than broaden it.

This week, the Tennessee Department of Health officially halted all vaccination outreach for adolescent residents. To clarify, that’s all vaccination outreach, not just vaccination against COVID-19; vaccinations against the flu, measles, and more are being downplayed. Additionally, Dr. Michelle Fiscus, medical director for vaccine-preventable diseases and immunization programs at the Tennessee Department of Health, was suddenly presented with letters of resignation and termination on Monday.

In response to this sudden firing, Dr. Fiscus published a 1,200 word op-ed in The Tennessean, stating her discontent with the direction the Department had taken. She wrote that she was “angry for the amazing people of the Tennessee Department of Health who have been mistreated by an uneducated public and leaders who have only their own interests in mind.”

“I am not a political operative, I am a physician who was, until today, charged with protecting the people of Tennessee, including its children, against preventable diseases like COVID-19,” she said.

The Department responded by saying that “We have in no way shuttered the immunizations for children program. We are simply mindful of how certain tactics could hurt that progress.” Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has remained silent on the matter as of writing.