Dr. Allison Arwady was fired, a source familiar with the situation said.

Chicago’s longtime Public Health commissioner was told shortly after 5 p.m. that she was terminated, the source said.

Arwady still has never met with Mayor Brandon Johnson, the source said.

The infectious disease expert steered Chicago through the COVID-19 pandemic. Also a pediatrician, Arwady was appointed by former Mayor Lori Lightfoot She told the Sun-Times in April that she would like to continue under Johnson.

A Johnson spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.

The public health commissioner is an important job and the department head oversees a number of programs that include mental health, opioid addiction, HIV and other infectious diseases and environmental protection.

Arwady has been given credit for her leadership role during the COVID years but she also has been in the crosshairs of the powerful Chicago Teachers Union, a significant backer and ally of Johnson.

The teacher felt Arwady sent students back to classrooms too early as COVID continued to infect Chicagoans.

Lightfoot’s hardball tactics of threatening to withhold teachers’ pay and locking them out of their online classrooms during the back-to-school dispute also harmed Arwady’s reputation among the educators.

Arwady has tried to downplay those tensions, calling them “differences of opinion.”

The Yale-educated Arwady, a former epidemiologist with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has said she and Johnson share a number of common goals, including narrowing the life expectancy gap that exists between white and Black Chicagoans.

On average, white Chicagoans live a full 10 years longer than the city’s Black residents.

Brett Chase’s reporting on the environment and public health is made possible by a grant from The Chicago Community Trust.