Beacon Hill Update: Thursday, February 18th, 2021
February 19, 2021“Thursday, February 18, 2021:
- As of Wednesday night, DPH reported a total of 533,024 cases of COVID-19.
- The state reported 1,322 new confirmed cases.
- The state has now confirmed a total of 15,312 deaths from the virus.
- The House and Senate both meet in informal session today at 11am.
- About 70,000 appointments at mass vaccine sites in Springfield, Danvers, Boston and Foxborough will become available around 8 a.m. Thursday for the newly eligible populations and for those who previously qualified for the shots, people age 75 and older, the staff and residents of nursing and congregate care facilities, and health care workers.
- News of the coming expansion sent people flooding to the state’s vaccine-booking website , about an hour and a half after the announcement, Governor Baker said there had been 250,000 visits to the site.
- In a state with a population of about 6.9 million, about 1.1 million people are currently eligible for vaccines, and approximately another million will join them Thursday.
- Starting March 1, the state will no longer ship first doses to municipalities holding clinics that serve only their own local residents, except for 20 cities and towns the Department of Public Health has identified as having the greatest COVID-19 burden and the highest percentages of non-white residents: Boston, Brockton, Chelsea, Everett, Fall River, Fitchburg, Framingham, Haverhill, Holyoke, Lawrence, Leominster, Lowell, Lynn, Malden, Methuen, New Bedford, Randolph, Revere, Springfield and Worcester.
- The population becoming eligible for vaccines on Thursday includes individuals age 16 and older with two or more from a certain group of medical conditions: moderate to severe asthma, cancer, chronic kidney disease, COPD, Down Syndrome, heart conditions, immunocompromised state from an organ transplant, obesity, pregnancy, sickle cell disease, smoking and type 2 diabetes mellitus.
- That list mostly adheres to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention list of conditions that place people at higher risk of severe illness from the coronavirus.
- Massachusetts has now added in asthma, which Governor Baker said “is an environmental and economic justice issue.”
- People with one of those conditions will become eligible later in Phase 2 of the state’s three-phase vaccine distribution plan, after teachers and other essential workers.
- Governor Baker said the state is still “pretty much on track” with the basic schedule of its original plan, which envisioned the current portion, Phase 2, running from February to April, and Phase 3, serving the general public, penciled in for April to June.
- The Legislature’s new COVID-19 and Emergency Preparedness and Management Committee will host a hearing on Feb. 25 to hear testimony from the executive branch about how it has been distributing vaccine doses and its plans for the future.
- House Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka criticized the administration’s approach as they unveiled their plans to get more involved.
- Speaker Mariano said the rollout “has been marked by both logistical and communications shortcomings” and Spilka called it a “constantly changing and confusing” plan.
- Hearings will be led by Sen. Jo Comerford, a Northampton Democrat, and Rep. Bill Driscoll, a Milton Democrat, who are chairing the COVID-19 and emergency management panel.
- Public health experts have warned since virtually the beginning of the pandemic that the COVID-19 crisis wreaks more severe impacts on vulnerable populations such as communities of color and lower-income earners.
- Now, those gaps in the pandemic experience have been highlighted in a state-run survey of more than 35,000 Massachusetts.
- Groups including LGBTQ populations, people of color, lower-income households and those with disabilities often experienced more worry about COVID-19, less economic stability during the crisis, and greater rates of delayed medical care, according to data from the survey presented at a state Public Health Council meeting on Wednesday.
- Massachusetts will roughly double the population eligible for COVID-19 vaccines on Thursday, when people over age 65, the residents and staff of affordable and low-income housing for seniors, and people with two or more health conditions that put them at higher risk will be newly able to make appointments.
- As the state expands eligibility, it’s also focusing on high-capacity locations like mass vaccination sites and regional collaboratives to deliver the shots, a move Baker administration officials say is designed to streamline the process of immunizing as many people as possible.
- A senior-level director in charge of COVID-19 vaccination equity and an allocation of $10 million to community organizations for outreach and engagement in communities of color are part of a list of five demands outlined Wednesday by a new coalition seeking to address what they say are serious racial injustices in the state’s vaccine distribution plan.
- The coalition, made up of 11 civil rights, social justice, and medical organizations, presented the plan at a press conference Wednesday and said they are ready and willing to work with Governor Baker to implement the five steps. This comes as Baker rolled out an outreach initiative Tuesday focused on 20 cities and towns that have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.
- The Vaccine Equity Now! Coalition wants the administration to track vaccine benchmarks that mirror the disproportionate impact COVID-19 has had on Black and Latinx residents, improve language access and cultural competence across all levels of the administration, and implement an enhanced 20 percent allocation of vaccines to communities most impacted by the pandemic that was laid out in the initial distribution plan.
- Governor Baker signed an executive order Wednesday to ensure military personnel and their spouses are receiving the proper support to continue their careers in Massachusetts once transferred here by expediting review and portability of professional licenses.
- The order directs the Division of Professional Licensure to work with individual licensing boards to explore whether Massachusetts should join any interstate licensing compacts to improve portability of licensing, and to ensure the timely processing of license transfer applications.
- Governor Baker directed the DPL to focus on licensing requirements for physical therapists, accountants, engineers, psychologists, barbers and cosmetologists.
- Those careers were identified by the United States Air Force as priorities, according to the administration
- A disproportionate number of vehicles in Massachusetts have expired inspection stickers, and state officials are ramping up efforts to convince people to get required annual emissions and safety inspections.
- The Registry of Motor Vehicles announced Wednesday that it is teaming up with the state Department of Environmental Protection, Massachusetts State Police, local law enforcement, and business partners to remind customers of the requirement.
- The RMV says there are more than 584,000 registered vehicles in the state with expired stickers.
- That works out to about 10.8 percent of the 5.4 million active vehicle registrations in Massachusetts.
- Driving a vehicle without a valid inspection sticker is a traffic violation that could lead to a fine and negative effects on individual insurance rates, but the RMV said it is asking law enforcement to use discretion at this time and help remind people that it’s time to renew stickers instead of citing them.
- The Mass. Gaming Commission decided Wednesday to work towards filing an amicus brief in a lawsuit that alleges Encore Boston Harbor has been duping customers by paying out at less favorable odds for blackjack wins after commissioners previously agreed amongst themselves that weighing in could give the perception that the regulators were siding with the casino they are meant to oversee.
- At issue is a class action complaint filed in U.S. District Court in 2019 alleging that the Everett casino “brazenly stolen and will continue to steal” from customers by ignoring “established rules of the game of Blackjack to increase its statistical advantage and lower the lawful payouts owed to its customers.”
- The complaint takes specific issue with the Wynn Resorts casino paying out a blackjack, when a player is dealt an ace and any card having a point value of 10, at 6-to-5 odds rather than at 3-to-2 odds.”
by David Gauthier
