A screen shot of PA Gov. Tom Wolf (right) today
The commonwealth plans to launch a statewide civilian “corps,” which would provide COVID-19 testing and contact tracing.
Gov. Tom Wolf made the announcement today, saying that the new “Commonwealth Civilian Coronavirus Corps” would permit the state’s economy to reopen more quickly and fully, while having the added benefit of providing jobs during a time of high unemployment.
“We do not want to spend the next few months or the next year cloistered inside our homes,” he said, during a virtual speech. “We want to be able to resume working, going to school, going to church and visiting our loved ones. We want to reopen businesses of all types, and we want to be able to do this with as little risk as possible.”
The new corps would be deployed around the state specifically to test for the illness and provide contact tracing—tracing those who an infected person may have come in contact with so they can be identified and quarantined.
“To reopen our economy to its maximum potential, we will need to boost our ability to contain this highly transmissible virus,” he said. “[The corps] will reduce our unemployment rate while making a lasting health and economic contribution to our commonwealth. By maximizing our testing and contact tracing capabilities, we can contain COVID-19 without widely freezing the movement of Pennsylvanians.”
Even with the corps, the state likely will not be able to resume activities that include large crowds, such as concerts, he said.
According to Wolf’s office, the Commonwealth Civilian Coronavirus Corps would:
- Partner with local public health agencies, community organizations and nonprofits to expand Pennsylvania’s existing testing and contact tracing initiatives.
- Leverage additional resources to fund testing and contact tracing initiatives.
- Explore “creative ways” to recruit experienced Pennsylvanians with health care and public health experience to support the initiative.
- Coordinate existing resources deployed by the commonwealth, including community health nurses and county health departments that are currently conducting testing and contact tracing throughout the state.
The Commonwealth Civilian Coronavirus Corps will also provide an opportunity for Pennsylvania to recruit and train COVID-19-impacted dislocated and unemployed workers into public service for contact tracing roles, Wolf said.
To foster this new workforce, the corps would:
- Engage partners in the workforce development system, existing allied health training programs, and AmeriCorps programs to build and strengthen a public health workforce across the commonwealth.
- Leverage existing workforce development resources to recruit, train and connect the public health workforce with employment opportunities.
- Engage public health and health care employers to connect trained workers with long-term career opportunities.
Wolf said he would unveil more details of the program “in the coming weeks.”
“We have slowed this virus through shared sacrifices,” he said. “We have bought precious time. We now need to use that time effectively by building a program that will allow commonwealth to function as much as possible while we wait for a vaccine.”
