By SABRINA MORENO
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Here s a look at the 15 Virginia localities with the most COVID-19 cases during the first 12 months of the pandemic.
RICHMOND â As part of a $2.25 billion investment across the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has awarded Virginia more than $30.6 million to address health inequities fueled by the pandemic.
The primary goals of the grants are to reduce COVID-related disparities over the next two years, improve and increase contact tracing among the most-impacted populations and people in rural areas, and bolster the capacity for health departments to prevent infections.
In a media release, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said the grants reflected the federal agencyâs âcommitment to keeping equity at the center of everything we doâ and added that they are a step toward strengthening âour communitiesâ readiness for public health emergencies â and to helping everyone in A
Democratic lawmakers wanted to replace a defunded agency by creating a new office that would look at health inequities across the state. But after Republicans pulled it into ongoing debates about transgender rights and critical race theory, the bill died in the Senate.
Pharmacist Ilana Druker gives a vaccine to Beverly Mills, a teacher at Houston Independent School District’s Hattie Mae White Educational Support Center. A proposal that recently died in the Legislature would have created an office to track health outcomes for Texans. Credit: May-Ying Lam for The Texas Tribune
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When the state’s Office of Minority Health Statistics and Engagement was defunded in 2017, no one could have predicted a massive pandemic would emerge three years later one that disproportionately affected Black, Hispanic and disabled Texans, among other marginalized people.