The Public Health Response to Covid-19 in Zhejiang Province and Washington State – Virtual Program

This is a virtual program, instructions on how to join this meeting will be sent the day before the event.

Since the WHO China Country Office was informed of a cluster of cases of pneumonia in Wuhan on December 31, 2019, what we came to know as COVID-19 has since spread to 187 countries, infecting more than 3.7 million people and causing at least 270,000 deaths. And whereas Wuhan was soon overwhelmed by the disease, nearby Zhejiang province, with close ties to Wuhan and a major economic powerhouse, acted early and was able to limit the spread of the virus with drastic measures. In the United States, Washington State had the first COVID-19 death, on February 19, more than a month after the first confirmed case on January 21. Early implementation of social distancing measures is believed to have drastically reduced the spread of the virus. Although Washington State is still seeing new cases and new deaths daily, the curve appears to have been flattened. As local and national governments prepare to relax social distancing and return people’s lives to a new normal while the virus still spreads and with no vaccine, what must be done to minimize rebound and safeguard public health? Join the World Affairs Council for a panel with public health experts from Zhejiang and Washington State on May 20 at 5pm PDT. The Council is pleased to work with the United Chinese Americans of Washington to bring you this timely discussion.

About the Speakers
Dr. Xifeng Wu, is the Dean of the School of Public Health at Zhejiang University. Dr. Wu mainly focuses on molecular cancer epidemiology, health and medical big data, biomarkers, precision health, and artificial intelligence in cancer risk prediction. Dr. Wu earned her Ph.D. from The University of Texas School of Public Health in 1994.

Before joining Zhejiang University, she served at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center that ranked the first in the American Cancer Hospitals as Tenured Professor, and as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Texas School of Public Health for over 27 years. She was named as endowed Ashbel Smith Professorship in 2004 and endowed Betty B. Marcus Chair in Cancer Prevention in 2008. She had served as Leader for the Premalignant Genome Atlas program, Director for the Center for Translational and Public Health Genomics, Director of the Patient History Database, Chair for the Department of Epidemiology, and Leader of the Department of
Epidemiology Program.

Since Dr. Wu joined Zhejiang University in February 2019, she has held and led multiple research projects and centers including Zhejiang Province’s key R & D plan project “Precise Cancer Prediction, Prevention and Treatment Based on Big Data and Artificial Intelligence”, Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Intelligent Preventive Medicine, and Zhejiang Province Leading Intelligent Big Data Innovation team. Dr. Wu has been one of the most funded researchers in the entire US cancer epidemiology field. She is a highly productive cancer epidemiologist with over 560 publications, including Nature Genetics, Lancet, Lancet Oncology, JAMA, JNCI, JCO, Gut, NEJM, Science, etc. Dr. Wu has received many awards, including MD Anderson Cancer Center’s Faculty Scholar Award, the Margaret and James A. Elkins Jr. Faculty Achievement Award in Cancer Prevention, the Julie and Ben Rogers Award for Excellence in Research, the Robert Chamberlain Distinguished Mentor Award, Houston’s 50 most influential women, and Leading Mentor in Cancer Prevention. She has served on committees for the US National Cancer Institute, the European Research Council, the Cancer Research United Kingdom, China National Molecular Translational Center, and many others.

Dr. Jian An Wang, President of the 2nd Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine is the Executive Director of the Heart Center and the President of the Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine. Under his leadership for more than ten years, the Hospital has made remarkable achievements in many areas, including culture development, academic advancements, practice standards, service quality, international exchange and local cooperation, by focusing on “Excellence” and “Globalization”, the central tenets of the Hospital’s development strategy. His outstanding achievements and contribution have won him many honors and awards, chief among which are the national “Bethune Medal” and “Most Influential Leader among Hospital Presidents in China”.

Gabrielle Fitzgerald is the founder and CEO of Panorama, an action tank dedicated to achieving ambitious goals and solving the world’s toughest problems. A global leader who believes innovative approaches and catalytic coalitions can solve the most challenging issues, Gabrielle leads diverse and dynamic teams and collaborates with partners to spark global change.

Prior to founding Panorama, she directed the $100 million Ebola Program at the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, investing in creative approaches to combat the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Gabrielle previously served as the director of Global Program Advocacy at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, leading the team that advanced policy and advocacy agendas for the organization’s global issues. In 2014, she won the Gold Medallion award from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for Communication Programs for her leadership on malaria.

Her focus has always been on designing and driving strategies that measurably impact people, organizations, and countries. Earlier in her career, Gabrielle led the public affairs strategy for HIV/AIDS at the United States Agency for International Development and served as the communications director for the U.S. Committee for Refugees. She also served as a speechwriter for President Clinton at The White House.
Gabrielle is the chair of the board of the Washington Global Health Alliance and serves on numerous advisory committees and panels. She holds a Master of Public Administration from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University and a Bachelor of Arts from American University in Washington, DC.
Gabrielle feels fortunate to have traveled to 65 countries, and loves traveling for work and with her family.

Wenfeng Gong is a Fellow at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, where he leads a portfolio of projects to monitor global vaccine demand and demystify the drivers of vaccination using a mixture of social science methods, epidemiology, and advanced analytics; he also co-leads a strategy to accelerate new vaccine introductions in China through financial innovation, advocacy, and implementation sciences. He is part of a team to explore various applications of data science techniques in the global development arena. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Wenfeng is part of the Foundation’s response team and has provided technical guidance to many national epidemiologic investigation activities. Wenfeng is an infectious disease epidemiologist who studied and worked for five years at Johns Hopkins International Vaccine Access Center, where he led a two-year research project in Pakistan to design and test various statistical and operational innovations to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of immunization program monitoring. Wenfeng has conducted many consulting projects for the BMGF, Gavi, and WHO on survey quality assurance, big data visualization, and vaccine impact and cost-effectiveness assessments. In his early career, Wenfeng was a GIS specialist at Duke Center for Health Policy and a research assistant at the Institut Pasteur of Shanghai-Chinese Academy of Sciences.

About the Moderator
Jeff Hall is a Deputy Director at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where he oversees the Strategy, Planning, and Management for multiple teams within the Global Policy & Advocacy division. In this role, he leads cross-functional teams in supporting the development and execution of policy, advocacy and communications strategies, including operational guidance, internal programmatic and financial alignment, and external investment support for issues related to global health and development. Most recently, he transitioned to support the foundation's work across a breadth of programs in China, including coordination of a foundation-wide response to the recent Coronavirus epidemic.

Raised outside of Washington DC, Jeff received his BA in Economics from the University of Virginia, and spent nearly 15 years working in public and private sector consulting around the US and across the globe, including the Middle East and South America. His desire to pursue more mission-driven work led him to the Pacific NW, where he now lives in Seattle, WA, prior to completing a move to Beijing in mid-2020.

Promotional Partners