The CDC awarded $631 million through the CARES Act of 2020 to enhance COVID-19 testing and contact-tracing efforts.
The CDC will provide the funding to public health departments in 64 jurisdictions. The funds are in addition to previously announced support from the CDC.
Funding can be used to establish or enhance contact-tracing and follow-up and implement containment measures. Politico reported that the U.S. will need 100,000 to 300,000 workers to conduct contact-tracing for COVID-19, although the nation currently has far fewer people trained and ready to conduct contact-tracing.
The funding also can be used for enhancing morbidity and mortality surveillance and testing capacity. Recipients also can use funds in collaboration with health systems to manage and monitor system capacity.
There are several efforts to monitor hospital resources and predictive models to ensure healthcare systems can meet future capacity demands. Some are led by health systems. Cleveland Clinic recently released its predictive models for other health systems to use.
As of April 23, HHS had awarded more than $1.6 billion to states and jurisdictions for COVID-19 response.
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