COVID-19 Collaboration: Taking Action to Address Communities’ Needs

In 2020, communities around the world came together to reduce the effects of the pandemic. Using COVID-related supplemental funding, ATSDR collaborated with state, local, tribal, and community organizations to address new and ongoing needs in the face of this unexpected challenge. A large portion of the funding supported safe cleaning and disinfection in schools and childcare facilities. From ensuring the safe use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers, to developing a continuously updating, state-of-the-art COVID-19 Data Tracker, to setting up a COVID-19 testing site on the Blackfoot Indian reservation in Montana, community health and well-being throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond has been at the forefront of ATSDR’s work.

ATSDR’s Office of Emergency Management coordinators collaborated with CDC’s Emergency Operations Center to facilitate hundreds of ATSDR staff deployments to support the COVID-19 response at the local, state, tribal, and federal levels. Staff worked in vaccine and clinical support, infection control support, as members of CDC’s Emergency Response Team, and more, including

• Screening international visitors for COVID-19 before they entered the country in Seattle
• Coordinating and facilitating inter-agency collaborations in Washington, D.C.
• Building sustainable communication networks for health information distribution in Oklahoma
• Conducting wellness checks on deployed CDC and ATSDR staff