Baker due back before virus panel
Gov. Charlie Baker is back in the hot seat today at the state Legislature’s second oversight committee hearing on the government response to the coronavirus pandemic and the vaccine rollout.
The Republican governor is among a dozen panelists expected to be grilled during five hours of testimony before the Joint Committee on COVID-19 and Emergency Preparedness and Management starting at 11 a.m., according to a schedule released on Monday.
Baker testified last month before the committee amid a chaotic expansion of the state’s vaccine distribution program that was at the time defined by technology frustrations and a lack of access to the life-saving shots in short supply.
Since the last hearing, the governor has heeded lawmakers’ calls for a centralized pre-registration system, which Baker last week said hundreds of thousands have signed up for. After initially lagging behind other states in terms of vaccination efforts, Massachusetts has shot to the front of the pack. As of Monday, Massachusetts ranked ninth among states in doses administered per 100,000 residents, according to the CDC coronavirus vaccine tracker.
Baker has defiantly blamed federal shortages and repeated the state’s improving vaccine statistics in the weeks since getting grilled at the last oversight hearing.
But frustrations endure over constant pivots in plans and Baker’s reliance on forprofit companies to run mass vaccination sites rather than empower local boards of health to dole out shots.
Lawmakers will hear from local health officials from Andover, Barnstable County and Worcester during
Lawmakers including Sen. Barry Finegold and Rep. Linda Dean Campbell, who cochair the Joint Committee on Advanced Information Technology, the Internet and Cybersecurity will also testify, along with state health officials including Health Secretary Marylou Sudders and representatives from state’s technology office and Project Beacon, which runs the state’s VaxFinder website.