Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department spent $65.5 million on COVID-19 response
In response to the coronavirus pandemic, the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department spent $65.5 million last year in federal dollars on testing, adding employees and advertising.
Staff presented data on the COVID-19 response in the Board of Health meeting on March 3, breaking down the $65.5 million distributed by Pierce County of its $158 million allotment of CARES Act federal funding.
Pierce County has seen almost 38,000 reported cases of the coronavirus in almost a year of the pandemic, according to the health department data on Tuesday.
In that time, the health department:
Investigated 30,667 cases
Hired 212 temporary employees
Delivered 2,399 food packages and 2,381 cleaning packages
Administered 5,433 flu shots
Tested 4,063 in the school pilot testing program
Distributed 96,000 testing kits to the community
Created more than 50 billboards and posters on COVID-19 response messaging
Stephanie Dunkel, the COVID-19 incident commander for Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department, said the health department worked with Pierce County Department of Emergency Management to submit CARES funding requests for various funding areas under priority buckets, such as testing and surveillance.
In addition to the $65.5 million, the Pierce County Department of Emergency reports $15.7 million was spent on COVID-19 testing, $11.4 million on the Temporary Care Center Facility and resources for residents, and $10.8 million for personal protective equipment to distribute to school districts and businesses.
According to Pierce County data on the CARES Act funding, the health department spent $25.3 million on “proactive testing and disease prevention.” This includes testing tools and test kits, Dunkel said.
The health department spent $16.3 million on “local healthcare system capacity.” This designation of funding includes methods to “increase testing and other infrastructure throughout healthcare.”
The goal was to provide funding to healthcare agencies to increase their testing capabilities,” Dunkel said. “At the time, there was limited testing resources available. Those funds went toward staff, equipment, etc.”
Purchasing and training individuals on personal protective equipment cost about $10.4 million, according to county data.
An estimated $5.4 million was spent on contact tracing COVID-19 cases, and $2.1 million on public education programs like billboards and posters regarding the coronavirus response.
Data collection, analysis and reporting cost $1.9 million, and the health department spent $1.2 million on the Temporary Care Center Facility.
About $500,000 was spent on supporting epidemiology and data teams with technology like server software, Dunkel said.
