Follow the Data Podcast: Responding to a Pandemic Crisis

Healthcare workers from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment check in with people waiting to be tested for COVID-19 at the state’s first drive-up testing center on March 12, 2020 in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)

As Mayor of New York City, Mike Bloomberg created a Pandemic Influenza Plan that included disease monitoring, building laboratory capacity, delivering vaccines and medicines, and preparing hospitals, mental health providers and city communications for a disease outbreak.

Mike also led the City through a number of public health crises, including the swine flu outbreak in 2009 and the West Nile virus in 2012. Throughout these moments, Mike always said we have to trust and listen to our public health experts and give them the tools they need to protect the public.

In this episode of our series highlighting Bloomberg Philanthropies’ COVID-19 response, Dr. Jessica Leighton, who works on our Public Health program spoke to Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, the vice dean for public health practice at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

They discuss how COVID-19 is different from other recent outbreaks, the four phases of crisis response for public health disasters, and how the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is tackling the coronavirus from every angle.

You can listen to the podcast and past episodes in the following ways:

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For more from our coronavirus series:

In our last episode, How to Help Nonprofits Hit Hard By COVID-19, Megan Sheekey – who leads Strategic Partnership work at Bloomberg Associates – spoke to Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, an international social justice philanthropy and one of Bloomberg Philanthropies’ co-funders in the fund to support New York City nonprofits, to discuss how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting social service and cultural organizations across the city.

Dr. Tom Frieden, the President and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, and the former director of the CDC, and Dr. Kelly Henning, who leads the Public Health program at Bloomberg Philanthropies and the former Director of Epidemiology for the City of New York, discussed the global response to COVID-19 in a previous episode, “World War C” – Us Against the Microbe.