Pawtucket and Central Falls create Incident Command System to combat Covid-19

The Team, known as Beat Covid-19, to Focus on Grassroots Communication and Assistance

The Cities of Pawtucket and Central Falls are partnering with local organizations to combat the coronavirus pandemic after initiating broad based community support. In doing so, the two Cities have created an Incident Command System. The team, known as Beat Covid-19, is focusing on grassroots communication and assistance with the goal reaching out to every single household in the two cities, including identifying residents who become symptomatic as soon as they get sick and move them to effective isolation immediately.

Beat Covid-19 is spearheaded by Dr. Michael Fine, who serves as Health Liaison for the City of Pawtucket and heads the Central Falls Office on Health. Over the last few weeks, Dr. Fine has been working with both the Grebien and Diossa Administrations on the plan to provide information to all residents including those in hard to reach communities.

“Beat Covid-19 is a group of local and state organizations working in concert with RIDOH in order to access the hard to reach communities and provide them with the opportunity to defend themselves from this spread. This approach is different and has never been done before,” said Dr. Fine.

“The number of Covid-19 positive cases continues to increase in Central Falls and Pawtucket. We are coordinating a ground-level response to slow the increase and assist our residents,” said Central Falls Mayor James A. Diossa. “We have established a team that will allow us to truly connect with everyone in our community. I thank all of the organizations and individuals who have rapidly stepped up to the plate.”

“Pawtucket and Central Falls are diverse communities. In order to reach all of our residents with necessary information to combat the spread of coronavirus, we understand that we need a community effort to the level of something we need to do with limited resources,” said Pawtucket Mayor Donald R. Grebien. “I thank all of the organizations who are stepping up and working with the Cities and Dr. Fine in order to keep our residents safe.”

Both Mayors and Dr. Fine acknowledged that this is the first step of many and noted that they anticipate having a hotline available to assist all Pawtucket and Central Falls residents who have questions, are experiencing symptoms, or need testing by the end of the week.

Any organization looking to get involved with Beat Covid-19 can reach out to Wil Arboleda via email at [email protected] or phone at 401-728-0500 ext. 358.

Health professionals looking to get involved are asked to contact RI Responds System, a partnership of the Rhode Island Department of Health and the R.I. Disaster Medical Assistance Team’s Medical Reserve Corps, and join the Medical Reserve Core. Visit riresponds.org or call Nola Rich at (401) 385-3911 to sign up.

Currently roughly 30 individuals from various organizations, including the ones below, represent Beat Covid-19.

·       African Alliance of RI

·       Cape Verdean Community Development

·       Care New England

·       Central Falls School Department

·       Collette Cares

·       Colombian-American Cultural Society

·       Fuerza-laboral

·       Latino Policy Institute

·       Mujeres Positiva

·       NAACP

·       Pawtucket Central Falls HEZ

·       Pawtucket Prevention Coalition

·       Pawtucket School Department

·       Progreso Latino

·       Project Health CV

·       Rhode Island Department of Health

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