Beacon Hill Update from Mass Access May 29, 2020
May 29, 2020Friday, May 29, 2020
David Gauthier
WinCam
As of Thursday night, DPH reported a total of 94,220 cases of COVID-19. The state has now confirmed a total of 6,547 deaths from the virus.
The House and Senate on Thursday agreed on final details of a bill (H4672) to increase COVID-19 reporting requirements at the Department of Public Health and extend the data collection umbrella to include places like the Holyoke and Chelsea soldiers’ homes and intermediate care facilities.
One final amendment Thursday pushed an interim report deadline from June 1 to June 30 for a task force to identify “initial recommendations and issues requiring further study” around health disparities for underserved or underrepresented populations.
The proposed COVID-19 disparities task force would look at groups based on culture, race, ethnicity, language, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, and geographic location, with an eye to so-called gateway cities.
Governor Baker now has 10 days to act on the bill (H 4672).
Newly sworn in Senators Susan Moran and John Velis, took their oaths of office just before Thursday’s session.
Both Senators Moran and Velis last week snatched away two seats previously held by Republicans.
They will face re-election in November as both arrived on Beacon Hill after special elections.
Both the House and Senate will reconvene on Monday in informal sessions.
The U.S. Coast Guard has concluded that the best way to maintain maritime safety and ease of navigation in the offshore wind development areas south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket is to install turbines in a uniform layout to create predictable navigation corridors.
The results of the Coast Guard’s Massachusetts and Rhode Island Port Access Route Study are largely in line with a proposal that the five developers that hold leases for offshore wind sites off New England made late last year to orient their turbines in fixed east-to-west rows and north-to-south columns spaced one nautical mile apart.
Having a consistent turbine layout across the seven adjacent lease areas, the companies said, would provide fishermen with the benefit of not having to change their practices as they pass from one lease area to another, and would promote safe maritime navigation.
Boston Mayor Martin Walsh announced Thursday that the previously postponed 2020 Boston Marathon has been canceled and will not be held on the Sept. 14 date officials originally targeted when they called off the traditional April running of the 26.2-mile road race due to the coronavirus.
This is the first cancellation of the Boston Marathon in 124 years.
Boston police Commissioner William Gross said Thursday that he supported the decision by authorities in Minneapolis to fire four officers involved in the death of 46-year-old George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died in police custody.
New unemployment claims continued their gradual downward trend last week from a mid-March high, but still outstripped pre-pandemic records as the national and state economic outlooks remain grim.
Massachusetts workers submitted 37,618 new claims for traditional unemployment insurance between May 17 and May 23, state officials said.
The federal Department of Labor reported 2.12 million claims filed over the same span.
Both figures were the lowest one-week totals since March 15, when widespread business shutdowns were ordered to prevent COVID-19 transmission, triggering a flurry of layoffs.
However, even as the numbers decreased, new claims remain at a level that was once unprecedented: at both the state and national level, last week’s new claims ranked the 10th-highest since 1987, surpassed only by the nine preceding weeks.
The hopes for a sharp and immediate rebound from the COVID-19 shutdown in Massachusetts are no longer realistic, according to the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, which is now predicting a long and slow climb that will strain state resources.
The impacts of the economic downturn could be mitigated by tapping into the state’s $3.5 billion reserve fund or if Congress sent more relief funding to states like Massachusetts, but even with stimulus the group said past recessions have proven that the state could be in for a multi-year period of austerity.
