From staff reports
The state Department of Health on Thursday applied for a $301 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to strengthen state and local public health capacity.
“This funding is essential to our future response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Pennsylvania,” state Secretary of Health Rachel Levine said in a news release.
“In our application, we earmarked about a third of that funding, more than $100 million, to bolster county and municipal public health departments’ response.
In addition to supporting local health departments, the release said the funding would support strategies that include continuing work to develop a robust testing and contact tracing strategy, and investing in public health surveillance and laboratory infrastructure.
The grant submission, the release said, focused on ensuring minority and underserved communities are targeted for testing, outreach and on improved demographic data collection.
