FEMA grants $4.3M to UMass Chan to reimburse COVID testing costs

Photo | Grant Welker UMass Chan Medical School and UMass Memorial Medical Center share a campus off Belmont and Plantation streets in Worcester.

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By Isabel Tehan

UMass Chan Medical School in Worcester will receive a public assistance grant of $4.3 million to reimburse the school for COVID-19 tests administered between May 2020 and December 2021.

Contractors performed 181,500 tests at UMass Chan during that period, according to a Tuesday press release from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA, the issuer of the grant, will send the funds to the Massachusetts state government directly.

“FEMA is pleased to be able to assist UMass Medical School with these costs,” Lori Ehrlich, FEMA Region 1 regional administrator, said in the release. “Providing resources for our institutions of higher education to combat the COVID-19 pandemic is critical to their success, and to our success as a nation.”

FEMA has provided more than $1.5 billion to Massachusetts in the form of public assistance grants for expenses related to the pandemic, according to the release. The other Central Massachusetts organization who received COVID reimbursements from FEMA include $31 million to UMass Memorial Health in Worcester, $6 million to the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, $1.1 million to Dean College in Franklin, $1.2 million to the City of Worcester to use the DCU Center as a field hospital, and $1.6 million to the Milford Regional Medical Center.