The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on Wednesday that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will provide more than $22 billion for states and local authorities to tackle the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic, according to the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act.
HHS said in a statement that they will allocate some $19 billion to support testing, contact tracing, surveillance, containment, and mitigation to monitor and suppress the spread of the virus, through a CDC Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity (ELC) cooperative agreement.
Another more than $3 billion will be available for supporting vaccination activities through the CDC’s Immunization and Vaccines for Children cooperative agreement.
The announcement came as the reported deaths caused by the CCP virus in the United States spiked on Jan. 6 to 3,865, an all-time high, and the new cases also jumped to 253,145, according to Johns Hopkins resource center.
HHS said that 64 jurisdictions including all 50 states, the District of Columbia, U.S. territories, New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Philadelphia are eligible for testing funds based on a population-related formula.
New York, Texas, California, Florida, and New Jersey are the top 5 states in total death cases, according to Worldometers’ data.
For the testing expansion fund, California will receive nearly $1.7 billion, with Los Angeles County getting $577 million. Texas will receive over $1.5 billion, with Houston receiving $133 million. New York State will reveive $639,861,809, while New York City will receive $479,853,706.
“On top of the substantial support we’ve already provided, the funding bill signed by President Trump in December has billions of dollars in new funding for COVID-19 testing and vaccinations,” said HHS Secretary Alex Azar.
“We’re making these billions in new funds available to states as quickly as possible to support our combined efforts to end the pandemic,” Azar added.
64 jurisdictions including 50 states and territories and New York City, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, and San Antonio are eligible for vaccination funds, based on a population-related formula.
California will receive the most at $357 million, Texas (less Houston and San Antonio) $227 million, and Florida at $194 million.
