On April 18, 2020, the Clinton Global Initiative University hosted a Coronavirus event to discuss the following:
“Today, President Clinton and Chelsea Clinton held a virtual convening of students, government leaders, and health experts from around the world for the 12th annual Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) meeting. Since its launch in 2007, CGI U has brought together 10,000 college students from around the globe to tackle the world’s most pressing challenges – building “Commitments to Action” that address challenges on their campuses, in their local communities, and around the world.
Today’s program included opportunities for students to hear from government and health leaders, have their questions answered by President Clinton and Chelsea Clinton, collaborate with other students, and respond to a new challenge to build Commitments to Action that respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Following the program, students came together in virtual breakout sessions to discuss their Commitments to Action and responses to the pandemic with peers who are in the same region.
President Clinton and Chelsea Clinton also announced the formation of the CGI U COVID-19 Student Action Fund,(link is external) funded by Founding Partner, Kevin Xu and colleges and universities that comprise the CGI University Network. This fund will provide over $100,000 in funding to student projects that aim to fight the pandemic, including awareness and prevention campaigns; disease monitoring and response systems; support projects for public health practitioners, and other programs.
Part of this event also included a virtual conversation between Bill Clinton and California Governor Gavin Newsom, discussing the “need” to track people “who are positive” with the Wuhan Coronavirus aka COVID-19, and describing the effort in terms of an “army” of young people. “Should we have a contact tracer corps, even if we call it something more elegant?” Clinton asks.
Newsom’s response to Clinton is an affirmative yes, explaining in no uncertain terms:
“The predicate for getting back to some semblance of normalcy is our ability to identify individuals through testing; to be able to trace their contacts; to isolate individuals that have either been exposed or quarantine people that are testing positive.”
The video clip below has been removed by YouTube and was tricky to recover from Twitter. It now has a permanent spot in the Clinton Foundation timeline, for posterity’s sake.
(Credit: Resurrection Europa@WolfishHead/Twitter)
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at his coronavirus briefing on April 30, 2020, that the state will hire thousands of contact tracers as part of the system being developed to help the state return to everyday life.
Not to be outdone, on April 28, 2020, during a virtual town hall with 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton says regarding the coronavirus pandemic, “this is a high stakes time because of the pandemic” and later said, “this would be a terrible crisis to waste.”
On May 4, 2020, we learn California’s Ventura County is hiring “contact tracers” and implementing the program.