By Alfred Acenas
EBC Hawaii Bureau
HONOLULU (Eagle News) – The City and County of Honolulu has joined the Rockefeller Foundation’s Testing Solutions Group, a demand-driven coalition committed to scaling up access to testing for COVID-19. Other new members include the State of Oregon and Cities of Louisville, KY, Tulsa,OK and Washington, D.C.
They are joining Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles, Greater Miami and the Beaches (a partnership including Miami, Miami Beach, and Miami Dade County), and New Orleans, alongside the Navajo Nation and White Mountain Apache Tribe through the Johns Hopkins Center for American Indian Health, to collaborate with other leaders and experts to find solutions to common challenges and to get their citizens back to work more safely.
“To face the COVID-19 challenge, our nation and cities such as Honolulu need every sector to pitch in and paddle hard together if we are to succeed in building more resilient communities,” said Mayor Kirk Caldwell. “Honolulu is honored to partner with The Rockefeller Foundation on the National Testing Action Plan, and it says a lot about our grit and ingenuity that we lead the nation on testing rates and flattening the curve. We are looking forward to working with The Rockefeller Foundation and other partners to expand testing capacity to help put Oahu safely back to work.”
As an operational part of its National COVID-19 Testing Action Plan, The Rockefeller Foundation convened its Testing Solutions Group for the first time on May 7.
Nearly 50 officials participated in the first of a series of meetings designed to facilitate the exchange of best practices for public health authorities and federal, state, city, and tribal officials working to scale up pandemic testing needs from the frontlines in order to reopen their economies while safeguarding public health.
“Testing is core to ending this crisis,” said Dr. Rajiv J. Shah, President of The Rockefeller Foundation. “It’s going take leadership at the federal, state, and municipal level to protect our workers and families and reopen our workplaces and communities, which is why I am thrilled to have such an incredible depth of leadership in our Testing Solutions Group.”
The Testing Solutions Group includes:
1. city, tribe, and state officials who are leading ambitious efforts to scale up testing in their communities as a pathway to safe and accelerated economic recovery;
2. technical assistance experts to help answer real-time questions from members as they expand their testing efforts; and
3. financial supporters to add to The Rockefeller Foundation’s initial $5 million commitment.
In 1913, the New York State Legislature passed a law incorporating The Rockefeller Foundation. Within the next two years, business magnate-turned-philanthropist John D. Rockefeller generously donated to the Foundation up to $100 million (more than $2.5 billion in today’s money).
The Foundation takes pride as a trailblazer in forging partnerships with various groups with the intent to spark innovations for transformative change.
(Eagle News Service)