Former state Health Director Bruce Anderson is a long way from home — nearly 5,000 miles away, to be exact.

He is far removed from public life and the days of overseeing Hawaii’s pandemic response just five months ago. Now living a quiet life in Virginia, Anderson is taking care of horses and building nesting boxes for bluebirds on a farm surrounded by hundreds of acres of pastures and forest in the historic town of Millwood in Clarke County.

He and his wife, Debbie, have both gotten their second COVID-19 shots and plan to volunteer at a local vaccination clinic.

“We still wear masks when we are near other people, but what a relief,” said Anderson, who was born and raised in Hawaii and sold some property on Hawaii island to purchase the horse ranch nearly two years ago, before the pandemic began. He still owns a house on Oahu, which he considers home.

“I look forward to fishing on the Shenandoah River, hooking a few brook trout in streams in the nearby Blue Ridge Mountains and riding our horses more often. In the meantime, woodworking projects and chores around the farm keep me happily busy. I ended up here in November and have been here ever since and loved every moment. It’s been a good change and adventure.”

Anderson, 68, retired from the Department of Health on Oct. 1 after a tumultuous nine months making tough decisions to keep coronavirus infections at bay. As the pandemic spread across the globe, eventually touching even the most remote places in the islands, he was responsible for ensuring the least amount of casualties in the public health crisis, as residents struggled to make ends meet after government-imposed restrictions cut off tourism, devastating the local economy.

“I think we did everything right technically. One of the weaknesses we had was not communicating regularly as much as we should with the media and the general public,” said Anderson in a telephone interview. “We had (news briefings) almost every day, but we could’ve probably explained better what we were doing, and that would’ve helped (reduce) some of the criticism we were getting as far as contact tracing.

“I was very proud that we had the lowest cases per capita in the country when I left and the lowest death rate. I don’t think we could’ve improved on what we actually did.”

As cases rose locally, so did criticism of the Health Department’s leadership. The health director and Dr. Sarah Park, the state epidemiologist blamed for failing to build a robust COVID-19 testing and contact-tracing program, were caught in the crosshairs.

A low point in public confidence came when DOH whistleblower Jennifer Smith, an epidemiologist, criticized the department for fostering a “toxic” culture of fear that impeded the work of investigators trying to stop the spread of disease. Health officials at the time claimed they had a sufficient public health workforce to identify new coronavirus cases, trace contacts and ensure those infected were isolated.

“Senators came over and went through our offices … and found 15 or 20 staff in the office at the time. What they didn’t realize was many of the people tracing were working from home, and others were in the other building they didn’t see,” Anderson said, acknowledging that even he had trouble getting the actual numbers of contact tracers from Park, who oversaw the program.

“It would seem to be simple enough just to get a roster of people who were trained … but it just seemed impossible for me to get those numbers. Honestly, I don’t think it was a huge priority for the staff.”

Park could not be reached for comment.

The Health Department also had problems ramping up the contact-tracing program despite the state investing $2.5 million to train roughly 400 tracers at the University of Hawaii.

“That was another area where we fell short, at least initially. There were some missteps there. We had a deep bench of people who could do the work, but for whatever reason it was difficult to engage them. That’s where Sarah didn’t focus on the issue as much as she should have. She felt that contact tracing was not an effective way to spend time and energy. She differed from me in recognizing the importance of having that function established and continuing it.

“In fact, that’s one of the reasons she was on leave; she didn’t appreciate the importance of that.”

What’s more, Anderson said the city’s surge testing on Oahu sponsored by the federal government was not a particularly wise use of scarce resources.

“Resources are limited. The mass testing that was done used up a tremendous amount of resources and was relatively inefficient in identifying new cases. Most of the people who went through the drive-thrus were the ‘worried well,’” he said.

Anderson, whose grandfather moved to Hawaii from the East Coast around 1900, was set to retire before the pandemic hit but decided to stay on to help during the public health emergency, which he said left him exhausted and suffering from stress-related medical conditions. He said he was bogged down by special legislative committees that required that he and his staff spend a significant time at the state Capitol briefing lawmakers and responding to their concerns.

“There were several different committees that were formed, which was confusing, and going to those meetings was very time- consuming. Obviously, everyone had a strong interest in what was happening. (But) it really was taking away from time we could’ve been spending actually doing the work.”

Without effective leadership and clear policies from the federal government, every state was “doing their own thing, and counties were also going off on their own,” which was a major problem across the country, he said, adding that federal policies to screen travelers and testing should’ve been in place.

“Individual states … cannot regulate aircraft and travel. The best we could do, and we did it, was to impose a 14-day quarantine (on arriving passengers). But there should’ve been screenings provided at the federal level. Of course, testing was haphazard across the country — that was also a huge problem.”

With an average of nearly 270,000 visitors in the Hawaiian Islands on any given day at the start of 2020, Hawaii was poised to become one of the worst-hit by the emerging disease. State officials had no choice but to implement mitigation measures, including closing high-risk venues such as restaurants and bars, which significantly lowered community transmission, he said.

“As painful as it was, it was very effective — the ­closures and stay-at-home orders, they all helped,” Anderson said. “There was no silver bullet. We used the best judgment we could. We could’ve very easily been the worst in the country with all the visitors we had and the issue of being isolated from the availability of resources, but we ended up being among the best — if not the best in the country — in preventing the spread of disease in Hawaii.”

For Anderson the ordeal was the “toughest time I’ve ever experienced” while working for the Health Department off and on since 1979, initially while in graduate school at the University of Hawaii.

“It was hard for everyone there. Everyone was feeling stressed, given the situation. There were no weekends for people. It was a long haul for everyone. It was like Groundhog Day every day,” he said. “Everyone there did, I think, a remarkable job in persisting and addressing public health concerns. I did my best, and that’s the best you can do.”