BOSTON – The Federal Emergency Management Agency will be sending more than $4.7 million to the State of Rhode Island to reimburse the state health department for the cost of technology it used to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
The $4,743,894 FEMA Public Assistance grant will go to the Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH) for the cost of using technology and data analytics to fight the pandemic between January and June 2022.
The data analytics and modeling team disseminated important metrics to various audiences, including policy decision makers, middle operations managers in testing, case investigation, and community mitigation, and the general public, including:
- Brown University and IBM utilizing testing data to identify patterns of risk for important subpopulations;
- Investigation of risk and protective factors from an epidemiological perspective, including geography, demographics, and an assessment of potential bias due to missing race/ethnicity information;
- A statewide survey to understand and monitor beliefs about COVID-19 and why people were or weren’t getting vaccinated;
- Modeling of COVID-19 hospital demand, and comparative modeling of alternative scenarios for opening up the economy.
“FEMA is pleased to be able to assist the State of Rhode Island with these costs,” said FEMA Region 1 Regional Administrator Lori Ehrlich. “Providing resources for our partners on the front lines of the pandemic fight is critical to their success, and our success as a nation.”
FEMA’s Public Assistance program is an essential source of funding for states and communities recovering from a federally declared disaster or emergency.
This grant brings the total awarded by FEMA to the State of Rhode Island to almost $600 million to reimburse the state for pandemic-related expenses.