Bay State ready to roll up its sleeves
Coronavirus vaccines are on the way
The historic Hoosac Tunnel, running through the mountains between North Adams and Florida, is four-and-threequarters miles long. The Big Dig’s Tip O’Neill Tunnel goes for a mile and a half under downtown Boston.
And the tunnel we unknowingly descended into sometime last winter when the novel coronavirus first arrived in Massachusetts? That one’s measured not in miles, but in months, and we still have a ways to go before coming out the other side, or even before knowing exactly how much of the trek remains.
But somewhere, off in the distance, is a faint glimmer, in the form of vaccines that will be complicated to distribute, require a bolstering of public trust and still have to work their way through the rest of the federal approval process.
“The availability of a COVID-19 vaccine obviously provides much needed hope and relief for many,” Gov. Charlie Baker said Wednesday. “In some ways, it does represent the so-called light at the end of the tunnel, but administering a vaccine to one person is a several week process, and after the first dose, a person must wait about six weeks, and then receive a second dose. Both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines take about six weeks to provide a person with immunity from the virus. That means that while the first doses will be administered shortly, we’re several months away from safely vaccinating a majority of the people of Massachusetts.”
“We are certainly not out of the woods yet,” he said.
With the first 59,475 doses of Pfizer’s vaccine set to land in Massachusetts in a matter of days — the shipment is expected next Tuesday — and make their way into ultra-cold freezers at hospitals and the Department of Public Health, Baker
outlined a three-phase vaccination plan that aims to make the shots available to the general public beginning in April 2021.
Phase One of the plan, set to start this month, involves vaccines for — in order of priority — health care and non-clinical workers involved in pandemic response, long-term care facilities, first responders, congregate care settings like shelters, prisons and jails, and homebased and other health care workers.
In Phase Two, it’s individuals with two conditions that put them at high risk of COVID-19 complications, workers in the fields of early and K-12 education, transit, grocery, utility, food and agriculture, sanitation, public works and public health, people aged 65 and over, and individuals with one comorbidity.
An eventual completion of all three phases of the vaccine plan could herald the start of the fourth phase of the Baker administration’s reopening plan.
That final tier — the one that could bring back nightclubs, dive bars, full bleachers at Fenway Park, overnight summer camps, parades and street festivals — hinges on vaccines and other potential breakthroughs lowering the risk inherent with large crowds.
While encouraging news around vaccination could make Phase 4 of the reopening seem closer, as of Sunday, it will get a step further away.
Responding to what he called “disturbing” trends in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations since Thanksgiving — which likely do not yet show the full impact of spread driven by gatherings on that holiday — Baker nudged the state backwards in the reopening process, regressing from step two of Phase 3 back to step one.
The move, which takes effect Sunday, will reduce capacity from 50% to 40% in retail shops, offices, libraries, museums and elsewhere, and it will require indoor recreational venues to once again close.
There are plenty of communities that never advanced to step two to begin with, including Boston, where Mayor Marty Walsh is mulling what local rollback options might be available if COVID-19 numbers continue their upward climb.
Across all communities, tighter face-covering rules will go into effect — no more sliding down your mask when you sit down at a restaurant table, dive into a strenuous cardio workout or join coworkers six feet away from you in a conference room.
New York City, meanwhile, plans to shut down its indoor dining on Monday. Some critics who say Baker’s rollback didn’t go far enough wanted to see him take a similar step here, but the governor maintained his stance that restaurants have stringent safety protocols in place and aren’t driving spread like informal social gatherings are.
The restrictions Baker did impose, which include a 90-minute time limit for restaurant tables and a decrease in the maximum number of diners allowed in a party, target what he’s identified as a major source of concern for him: people spending time with members of other households.
Exactly nine months after he first declared a state of emergency around the coronavirus, the Supreme Judicial Court on Thursday affirmed Baker’s authority to issue such orders limiting business operations and economic activity, rejecting a challenge that had argued the emergency executive orders were improperly rooted in the 1950 Civil Defense Act and amounted to an overstep of gubernatorial authority.
The SJC will soon be back at full strength after the September death of Chief Justice Ralph Gants and the retirement this month of Justice Barbara Lenk.
The Governor’s Council unanimously confirmed Boston Municipal Court Judge Serge Georges Jr. for a seat on the SJC bench. When Georges is sworn in, he will become the court’s seventh Baker appointee, putting Baker up there with the likes of John Hancock as one of the few governors in Massachusetts history to choose the full high court bench.
Baker this week also sought to make his mark on a major policing accountability bill shipped to him by lawmakers who, after months of closed-door negotiations, reached a deal on differing HouseSenate proposals that were inspired by the racial justice movement.
Leaving some of the bill’s more controversial measures — including civilian control of a new licensing board and limits on qualified immunity for police officers — un
touched, Baker offered up a series of amendments addressing his dealbreakers.
“I’m not going to sign a bill into law that bans facial recognition. I’m not going to sign a bill that puts people, by law, in charge of training police officers that are not law enforcement, and I’m not willing to take that activity out of the executive branch,” he said.
With 25 days left in this session, the ball is back in the court of a Legislature that at one point wanted to pass a policing bill in July and could have to start from scratch next term if faced with a veto or — depending on the timing — a pocket veto.
The House’s 92- 67 vote approving the compromise bill would be insufficient to override a veto, and the 28-12 vote in the Senate was over the two-thirds threshold by only one vote, leaving little wiggle room.
One of the House’s “yes” votes, Rep. Dan Cullinane, won’t be around for a potential override vote, or any other votes.
The Dorchester Democrat, who didn’t seek reelection and has had a lobbying job lined up since October, submitted his resignation letter and is officially leaving Beacon Hill after this weekend.
Also bound for a new gig is Massachusetts General Hospital infectious diseases chief Dr. Rochelle Walensky, a member of the state’s COVID-19 Advisory Board whom Presidentelect Joe Biden tapped as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“I can’t think of a better person to be in this role, a smarter, more compassionate person whose whole career has been driven by scientific analysis of policy, who’s a great
communicator,” said Walensky’s MGH colleague Dr. Paul Biddinger.
“I think for me, for the governor’s advisory group, we will miss her tremendously, but I think it’s a clear win for the nation.”
With the policing bill off his plate for now, Baker on Friday gave legislators more to chew over, signing a $45.9 billion state budget more than five months into the fiscal year but also serving them $156 million in spending vetoes and a handful of policy amendments.
Some of that spending, $53 million for schools, reappears in a separate supplemental budget Baker filed Friday afternoon.
Notably, Baker returned the budget’s abortion access language, striking provisions that would allow 16- and 17-year-olds to undergo the procedure without parental consent. Lowering the age from 18 is a substantial component of the changes sought by supporters who rallied behind the measure after the death of Supreme Court Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Baker described language that would ensure abortion access in cases where the child would not survive after birth as an important change to protect reproductive rights, but said he “cannot support the other ways that this section expands the availability of late-term abortions” and recommended amendments there as well.
The governor’s actions this week mean that abortion and police reform, two high-profile issues that have been the subject of passionate advocacy and opposition, are still unresolved as the two-year term enters its final weeks.
And of course, other ma
jor bills dealing with health care, climate change, transportation borrowing and economic development remain tied up in conference committee talks, creating the potential for a last-minute, end-of-session crush of lame duck legislative activity around (and after) Christmas and New Year’s.
MBTA overseers might be able to take advantage of an option not on the table for the Legislature: waiting until February, when the transit agency begins its budgeting process for next year.
The T’s Fiscal and Management Control Board is set to vote next week on a money-saving set of service cuts that have been widely panned, and officials indicated this week that the version that comes before the board will maintain more service than the original draft.
General manager Steve Poftak also suggested that the board could “potentially defer some decisions on service to the FY22 budget process where it’s feasible for us to have that flexibility.”
For Baker’s part, he said he thinks that “running empty trains and buses, as a general rule, is bad public policy.”
Regardless of what the MBTA’s cuts ultimately look like and when they materialize, fewer commuter rail trains will be on the tracks Monday, and it’s not budget-related. Rail operator Keolis is reducing weekday service through at least Dec. 27, citing “low employee availability because of COVID-19 absences.”
STORY OF THE WEEK: With the arrival of COVID vaccines on the horizon, a distribution plan takes shape.