Coronavirus updates: Mixed reactions to Mass. reopening – The Daily News of Newburyport

FEB. 26 -- As a week packed with pandemic-related news came to a close, Massachusetts public health officials confirmed 1,734 new cases of COVID-19 and announced 46 recent deaths caused by the virus.

The Department of Public Health said the state's cumulative case count rose to 547,358 infections and the state's death toll climbed with Friday's announcement to 15,703 people -- or 16,024 people when counting those who died with likely (but not test-confirmed) cases.

Between Thursday's daily report and Friday's update, DPH said, hospitals saw a net reduction of 47 COVID-19 patients. There were 807 people with COVID-19 being treated in Massachusetts hospitals, including 211 being treated in an intensive care unit.

The state's seven-day average positive test rate stands at 1.90 percent and DPH estimated Friday that there are 30,983 people in Massachusetts with active and contagious cases of COVID-19, roughly the same as the population of Gloucester.

As of Friday, there were 1,142,357 people in Massachusetts who had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 480,196 people had received two doses and are considered fully vaccinated, an increase of 25,724 people since Thursday's report. Massachusetts has administered 1,622,553 of the 2,026,900 vaccine doses delivered here, roughly 80 percent.

On Friday morning, Baker traveled to Newburyport to highlight the schools and districts participating in the administration's weekly pooled COVID-19 testing program as he ups the pressure on municipalities to get children back into classrooms full-time. -- Colin A. Young

Lawrence Delegation Requests Meeting with Teachers: With the Baker administration ramping up its efforts to bring elementary school students back to the classroom by April, the legislative delegation from Lawrence and the city's Mayor Kendrys Vasquez requested a meeting with the Lawrence Teachers' Union to discuss a return to in-person learning. The lawmakers, led by Sen. Barry Finegold, and the mayor wrote a letter to the Lawrence Teachers' Union on Wednesday, the day after Gov. Charlie Baker and Education Commissioner Jeff Riley laid out their back-to-school plan. The elected officials started by acknowledging the hardships faced by teachers over the past year. "However, months of remote learning have had a severe impact on the socioemotional well-being of our students, and the districts ongoing failure to return to in-person education will exacerbate the achievement gap between students in Lawrence and those in wealthier communities," they wrote. The lawmakers agreed that younger elementary school students are the most in need of in-person learning and the least likely to spread COVID-19, but also said students in transition years like 6th, 9th and 12th grades should be prioritized for returns to the classroom. "Overall, Lawrence's students desperately need to return to in-person learning, and we want to work with you to do so in a safe and methodical manner. We look forward to scheduling a meeting with you and hearing your input on this pivotal issue," the officials wrote. - Matt Murphy 4:50 PM Fri

CDC Chief: "Now Is Not The Time to Relax Restrictions": A day after Gov. Charlie Baker announced he's loosening economic reopening rules due to improving COVID-19 data here, Centers for Disease Control Director Rochelle Walensky said Friday that "now is not the time to relax restrictions." During a press briefing by the White House COVID-19 Response Team and public health officials, Walensky said COVID-19 cases, hospital admissions, and deaths all remain "very high," noting that the recent progress comes on the heels of "the highest peak we have experienced in the pandemic." In addition, she said the latest data "suggests that these declines may be stalling, potentially leveling off at, still, a very high number." The nation may also be starting to see the beginning effects of the spread of more transmissible COVID variants like B117, which accounts for about 10 percent of cases nationwide, up from 1 to 4 percent a few weeks ago, she said. And she cited new research this week about additional emerging variants in New York (B1526) and California (B1427) that she said also appear to spread more easily and are contributing to a large fraction of infections in those areas. "We are watching these concerning data very closely to see where they will go over the next few days," she said. "But it's important to remember where we are in the pandemic. Things are tenuous. Now is not the time to relax restrictions." - Michael P. Norton 2:53 PM Fri

690 Boxes of Moderna, 60 of Pfizer: A lot of attention has been paid in recent weeks to the limited supply of COVID-19 vaccine doses Massachusetts receives each week from the federal government, so the head of the state's COVID-19 Command Center broke it down for lawmakers Thursday. "I just want to describe what 139,000 doses looks like, to be very specific," Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders said. "It is 60 boxes of Pfizer and 690 boxes of Moderna per week. One requires ultra-cold storage and the other requires freezer capacity, along with the requirements that once the vial is punctured it must be used within six hours. Unlike flu vaccines, these are highly fragile. You can't break the boxes apart, you can't really move them apart." Sudders said the supply is "insufficient" and argued that the circumstances warrant a "streamlined and tightly-managed distribution process" like the one the Baker administration recently put into effect. Some lawmakers on the COVID-19 Committee were upset during Thursday's hearing about the number of doses being distributed to mass vaccination sites versus to local boards of health. In the weekly vaccine report published as Thursday's hearing was concluding, the Department of Public Health said that 40 percent of the roughly 1.9 million doses delivered here have gone to hospitals, 23 percent have gone to pharmacies and the federal program that vaccinates at nursing homes, 10 percent have gone to local boards of health, and nine percent to mass vaccination sites. "We understand and completely concur that there cannot be one channel for administration to achieve effectiveness, efficiency and equity," Sudders said. "But there also can't be unlimited channels when there is constrained supply. Until we have an unconstrained vast supply of vaccine, we must maintain a streamlined and tightly-managed distribution process." -- Colin A. Young 9:49 AM Fri

Before Hearing, 10,000+ Qs&As: Thursday was the first time lawmakers called Baker administration officials in front of them for an oversight hearing on COVID-19 issues, but it was far from the first time the administration fielded questions from legislators on the topic. When Secretary of Health and Human Services Marylou Sudders logged into the Joint Committee on COVID-19 and Emergency Preparedness and Management hearing, she thanked co-chair Sen. Jo Comerford for having worked with Rep. Denise Garlick to convene 27 bi-weekly "legislative sessions" over the last year. Those sessions, Sudders said, "yielded more than 10,050 questions from the Legislature and responses from us." Comerford thanked Sudders for being so available to lawmakers over the course of the pandemic. "What you said, I could have said verbatim just in terms of the way in which you've made yourself available to brief the Legislature," Comerford said. "And I'm deeply grateful to you and to your team for the way in which you really, you've hit it out of the park in terms of having conversations with us. And certainly your staff, helping us put out fires, as it were, as we move through the entire COVID pandemic." -- Colin A. Young 9:20 AM Fri

Summer Camp Decision Hailed as Critical: A state senator from Pittsfield whose district features dozens of overnight and day camps is celebrating Gov. Charlie Baker's decision to permit overnight camps to open in the first step of Phase 4. While that step is scheduled to start March 22, the Baker administration said Thursday that its decision will mean overnight camps can open this summer. Sen. Adam Hinds said the decision followed "months of countless phone calls, letters and meetings with the administration," and that it represents a "victory for working parents," and will facilitate planning and employee recruitment. According to the senator's office, there are 1,000 summer camps in Massachusetts and those camps are responsible for an annual economic contribution of $1.3 billion and over $220 million in directly paid wages. "The decision by the Baker administration to allow overnight and day camps to operate this summer is a huge win for the 250,000 children served by summer camps across the Commonwealth," said Matt Scholl, board president of the Massachusetts Camping Association. "The data is clear that camps can effectively uphold the health and well-being of our children and staff when following evidence-based protocols. Children have never needed summer camp more - prioritizing camp is a choice to prioritize healthy and thriving children." - Michael P. Norton 7:02 AM Fri

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Coronavirus updates: Mixed reactions to Mass. reopening - The Daily News of Newburyport