School nurses, health service corps part of $7.4B virus plan
WASHINGTON (AP) — The government is providing $7.4 billion to expand the nation's public health capacity, including hiring school nurses to vaccinate kids, setting up a health care service corps and bolstering traditional disease detection efforts, White House officials said Thursday.
Biden administration coronavirus testing coordinator Carole Johnson said it's part of a strategy to respond to immediate needs in the COVID-19 pandemic while investing to break the cycle of ‘boom and bust’ financing that traditionally has slowed the U.S. response to health emergencies.
“We really see this as funding that can help end the pandemic and help us prevent the next one,” Johnson told The Associated Press. The money was approved by Congress in President Joe Biden's coronavirus response law. Officials are now acting to pump it out to states and communities through the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A leading public health nonprofit, Trust for America's Health, welcomed the announcement.
“Given the fact that the core public health workforce is significantly smaller today than it was a decade ago, these are critically important steps,” said John Auerbach, president of the nonpartisan group, which provides its expertise to governments at all levels. “Ensuring Americans’ health security requires a standing-ready public health workforce." Auerbach served as an adviser to the Biden presidential transition.
About $4.4 billion of the new money will go to immediate priorities in fighting the pandemic.
That includes $3.4 billion for states and local health departments to step up hiring of vaccinators, contact tracing workers, virus testing technicians and epidemiologists, who are disease detectives trained to piece together the evidence on the spread of pathogens. The...
