COVID-19 Funding

At a glance

  • To bolster the governmental public health response to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, CDC awarded a total of $2 billion from the American Rescue Plan to the 65 eligible jurisdictions on the approved but unfunded list for CDC-RFA-TP18-1802 Cooperative Agreement for Emergency Response: Public Health Crisis Response to establish, expand, and sustain a public health workforce.
COVID-19 Image

Funding overview

May 2021 Funding

This supplemental funding is intended to establish, expand, train, and sustain the state, tribal, local, and territorial (STLT) public health workforce to support jurisdictional COVID-19 prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery initiatives, including school-based health programs. Approximately 25% of the jurisdictional awards will support school-based health programs, including nurses; approximately 40% of remaining funds will support local hiring through local health departments or community-based organizations.

CDC released an FAQ document summarizing responses to a variety of questions related to workforce development funding.

Historical funding information

March 2020 Funding

On March 6, 2020, the President signed into law the Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2020 (P.L. 116-123). This act provided funding to prevent, prepare for, and respond to Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19).

To support governmental public health emergency response to COVID-19, CDC activated CDC-RFA-TP18-1802 Cooperative Agreement for Emergency Response: Public Health Crisis Response. CDC awarded nearly $730 million in funding under Components A and B of the cooperative agreement to the 65 eligible jurisdictions that are on the approved but unfunded (ABU) list for CDC-RFA-TP18-1802 to provide resources to prevent, prepare for, and respond to COVID-19. This funding is intended for state, local, territorial, and tribal health departments to carry out surveillance, epidemiology, laboratory capacity, infection control, mitigation, communications, and other preparedness and response activities.

CDC awarded this funding in two phases:

  • March 16, 2020: $569,822,380 was awarded to 65 jurisdictions. CDC awarded this critical funding in just 10 days, well within the 30-day window required by the supplemental appropriation.
  • April 6, 2020: $160 million was awarded to 34 jurisdictions. This includes 27 jurisdictions with high COVID-19 case counts or evidence of rapidly accelerating case counts and seven U.S. territories and freely associated states with unique COVID-19 response challenges.
  • In June 2020, CDC provided $142,664 in additional funding to Washington to conduct a seroprevalence survey. CDC funded this population-based survey to estimate the cumulative incidence of infection with and prevalence of antibody to SARS-CoV-2 among the 2.2 million residents of King County, Washington, the first identified area to experience a COVID-19 outbreak.

On March 5, 2020, CDC redirected agency funds to initially award $25 million to 21 jurisdictions for COVID-19 response activities.

For more information on the COVID-19 supplemental funding and the activities supported by these resources, please see the COVID-19 Crisis Response Cooperative Agreement – Components A and B Supplemental Funding Interim Guidance or the following webinars.

Additional resources

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