COVID-19 Global Pandemic

Overview

In response to the Covid-19 global pandemic, the National Center for Disaster Preparedness, Columbia Climate School, Columbia University has created the Pandemic Resource and Response Initiative (PRRI) to provide solid, reliable insights, information, and perspectives on the evolving issues.

What does PRRI do?

  • Provided messaging and scientific guidance regarding the pandemic to the government, media, corporations, non-profit organizations, and the public about the ongoing issues that will continue to emerge for the foreseeable future.
  • Engaged experts in public health, disease modeling, pandemic development and control, medical research, economics and business, sustainable development, law, communications, and other disciplines from the greater Columbia community and beyond to help promote and derive innovative strategies to deal with this global threat.
  • Assisted corporations, agencies, and non-governmental organizations in creating pandemic-related short or long-term strategies for business continuity, adaptation, or reimagining missions, visions, and new workplace rules.
  • It focused on the health and well-being of healthcare workers on the front lines of caring for large numbers of COVID-19 patients and the critical integrity of supply chains that are needed nationwide.
  • Provided critical guidance to the public and political leaders across America (rural and urban) and, as requested, across the world, where resources are especially short and in communities that are economically depressed, medically underserved, economically fragile, and highly vulnerable.
  • In partnership with CherCares, it provided personal preparedness equipment (PPE), treatment, and testing to clinics through existing healthcare facilities for people in rural and urban communities who have minimal access to physical protection and medical care.

Our Partnerships

  • NCDP Global Pandemic Resources – A compilation of resources produced by NCDP or in partnership with external partners.
  • CherCares – Cher and Dr. Irwin Redlener formed the CherCares Pandemic Resource and Response Fund to help underserved communities struggling with poverty and other adversities long before COVID-19 appeared. Donations are geared toward people in rural and urban communities who have minimal access to physical protection and medical care. CherCares has identified where the greatest needs are and has provided PPE, treatment, and testing to clinics in targeted communities and hot spots through existing healthcare facilities. Equipment and supplies were provided to the Aaron E. Henry Community Health Center in Clarksdale, Mississippi, and The Boys and Girls Club of New Rochelle to support learning centers for children.
  • Joan Baez COVID-19 Relief — Joan Baez created charity prints for her late friend John Prine, who died of COVID-19. Sales of archival pigment prints of the portrait benefited PRRI, which focused on providing COVID-19 relief for underserved children.
  • Children’s Health Fund – NCDP, in collaboration with Children’s Health Fund, collaborated on two-part webinar series titled Building Up Communities & Breaking the Covid-19 Divide geared toward healthcare providers and child-serving institutions. In this two-part session, speakers engaged in a discourse on the social determinants of health and mental health related to COVID-19.

Contact

For more information about PRRI, contact:

Irwin Redlener, MD
Director, Pandemic Resource and Response Initiative (PRRI)
National Center for Disaster Preparedness
475 Riverside Drive, Suite 401
New York, NY 10115-0095
p 212.853.NCDP
ncdp@columbia.edu

Support

If you are interested in supporting initiatives like these, please visit our giving page here: https://ncdp.givenow.columbia.edu/