FEMA Awards Nearly $26 Million to Northeastern University for Testing Costs

The Federal Emergency Management Agency will be sending almost $26 million to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to reimburse Northeastern University for the cost of testing students, faculty and staff during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The $25,979,246 Public Assistance grant will reimburse the private research university in Boston for opening and operating three testing sites and a diagnostic laboratory between June 2020 and September 2021.

The university operated three COVID-19 test sites on the Northeastern University campus – Cabot Testing Center, Huntington Testing Center, and Life Sciences Testing Center – seven days a week, 12 hours per day, and tested on average 3,500 individuals per day. Northeastern completed 1,701,000 COVID-19 tests for students, staff and faculty.  

In order to operate these testing sites, Northeastern provided supplies which included personal protective equipment such as N95 respirators, medical gloves, masks, gowns and coveralls, as well as specimen storage and diagnostic processing,

“FEMA is pleased to be able to assist Northeastern University with these costs,” said FEMA Region 1 Regional Administrator Lori Ehrlich. “Reimbursing state, county, and municipal governments – as well as eligible non-profits and tribal entities – for the costs incurred during the COVID-19 pandemic is an important part of our nation’s ongoing recovery.”

FEMA’s Public Assistance program is an essential source of funding for states and communities recovering from a federally declared disaster or emergency.

So far, FEMA has provided more than $1.7 billion in Public Assistance grants to Massachusetts to reimburse the commonwealth for pandemic-related expenses.