Coronavirus in Massachusetts (how much, homes, school)

[OutdoorLover]

J&J doesn't have great manufacturing capacity for their just-approved Covid-19 vaccine. Merck has entered into a collaboration with J&J to make their vaccine at Merck facilities. These guys are normally competitors, so this is a great thing to see Merck do this for the country. It will still take some time of course, to get these manufacturing lines up and producing quality assured vaccine doses!

"Normally Competitors, Merck To Produce Vaccines For Johnson & Johnson"
https://www.npr.org/2021/03/02/97297...ohnson-johnson

[bohemka]

Originally Posted by htfdcolt

Honestly at this point, it's all misplaced anger, if by the end of May we'll have enough supply to vaccinate everyone (per Biden's announcement yesterday). Let's all be patient...it's going to be a matter of 12 weeks at most.

I hear ya and agree. I'm just thinking of it from the good ole optics standpoint. MBTA employees will not be pleased.

[OutdoorLover]

Originally Posted by htfdcolt

Honestly at this point, it's all misplaced anger, if by the end of May we'll have enough supply to vaccinate everyone (per Biden's announcement yesterday). Let's all be patient...it's going to be a matter of 12 weeks at most.

From what I recall, both Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech are supposed to produce their 300 million doses each for the USA by the end of July*. If you follow the news, they've been having some challenges, but it's a top priority and they are also working creatively to overcome those challenges, so I think they still have a good chance to meet the goals.

*This doesn't mean 600M doses in arms, it means 600M doses manufactured.

All in all, I think by the end of summer, so long as people accept the vaccines, we should be in much better shape.

[jtolpin]

Interseting.

At first, I was like 'Its about time' for teachers to get the vaccine (wife is teacher, but she and I got it already).

Then someone above posted about how upset grocery workers et al could be pissed.

Thats true. They should be.

Teachers just jumped right over the line... (no, not <their> fault).

Honestly, free for all.. Make it available to everyone <now> and be done with it.

[mdovell]

Originally Posted by OutdoorLover

From what I recall, both Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech are supposed to produce their 300 million doses each for the USA by the end of July*. If you follow the news, they've been having some challenges, but it's a top priority and they are also working creatively to overcome those challenges, so I think they still have a good chance to meet the goals.

*This doesn't mean 600M doses in arms, it means 600M doses manufactured.

All in all, I think by the end of summer, so long as people accept the vaccines, we should be in much better shape.

Domestically yes. in terms of global it's pretty much the USA, UAE, Israel and UK. It's going to take a long while before the rest of the planet. Initially it looks like we failed but as the EU and other areas got infected we pretty much made the vaccine. I'm still wondering what academia might look like Becker college is probably closing soon due to this

[BostonMike7]

Originally Posted by jtolpin

Interseting.

At first, I was like 'Its about time' for teachers to get the vaccine (wife is teacher, but she and I got it already).

Then someone above posted about how upset grocery workers et al could be pissed.

Thats true. They should be.

Teachers just jumped right over the line... (no, not <their> fault).

Honestly, free for all.. Make it available to everyone <now> and be done with it.

Literally 10 min before Baker got on this AM, there was a news story about a local funeral home director who passed for Covid and the demand to deem funeral workers essential and get the vaccine for them.


I'm sure the "essential" designation could really be applied to many, many fields and services depending on your criteria for what is deemed essential.

I know there are some who like to bag on Baker, but honestly, you couldn't pay me to have his job right now. Quite the definition of "damned if you do, damned if you don't" .

At least we aren't Texas

[lrfox]

Originally Posted by BostonMike7

Literally 10 min before Baker got on this AM, there was a news story about a local funeral home director who passed for Covid and the demand to deem funeral workers essential and get the vaccine for them.

I'm sure the "essential" designation could really be applied to many, many fields and services depending on your criteria for what is deemed essential.

Friend of mine owns an auto body shop with a towing arm in RI and he's been advocating there for tow truck drivers to be included as "essential." Of the responders to accident scenes, they're the only "non-essential" workers and they are regularly engaging with members of the public. He makes a strong case and I'm sure there are a lot of fields where similar cases could be made. I'm really glad I'm not making the calls.

[mdovell]

Well a few big things just came out.


"Governor Baker will announce today that, beginning next Thursday March 11th, K-12 and early childhood educators, child care workers, and K-12 school staff will become eligible to schedule COVID-19 vaccine appointments. This group of workers will join the currently eligible groups (including 65+ and individuals with 2+ certain medical conditions). These K-12 and early childhood educators and staff may book appointments at all 170 sites currently open to eligible residents in Massachusetts by visiting www.mass.gov/covidvaccinemap . "

Well Biden spoke and Baker listened for better or worse. From this I would argue that openings are far more likely in April going forward.

It looks like half of the governors branch could remain hybrid (20K people)
https://commonwealthmagazine.org/sta...-of-workforce/

"In a February Chamber of Commerce speech, Gov. Charlie Baker mused about the future of work, revealing that in conversations he had with state employees virtually none wanted to remain fully remote, but none wanted to return to the office full-time either.

“The sweet spot seems to be come in one to three days a week, or more or less depending on what’s going on,” Baker said. “It speaks to the fact I think for many organizations the way they operate is going to be different even when we get through the pandemic.”

"Today, Wood said, the agency is trying to move toward a model where every employee is issued a laptop, along with a docking station, monitor, keyboard, and mouse. That way, employees could use their laptop in the office or elsewhere, rather than having a desktop at the office and a laptop for travel. The state recently procured e-signature software to reduce the need for physical paperwork."

I recall some discussion here that people had to show up for wet signatures. Yeah that's not happening anymore.

"The shift is not confined to the executive branch. Auditor Suzanne Bump said at the hearing that her agency is also examining what it would take to shift to a hybrid working model moving forward. “Consistent with the planning going on in other executive branch offices, I expect that when we return it will be with a new model combining in-office and virtual work,” Bump said, adding that the details of that model are still “in the planning stages.”

How many people work for the state? Well on a full time basis I would argue tens of thousands.
CTHRU Statewide Payroll
MBTA, DDS, Trial Courts, DCF, Dept of Correction are easily 5,000 each. Top five departments including part timers are at least 25,000.

This will have a significant impact on traffic statewide let alone the economy. The default that everyone has to go to boston for everything is fading. If anyone bought out a house near Boston because they thought the surge was coming back with people that might not have been a good move. So this idea that tens of thousands of people were going to go into Boston and spend money at shops, restaurants, cafes and clubs...isn't really full time. Predictability of traffic is what businesses generally want. I used to go to a Sunday breakfast with coworkers and the second we'd leave the after church crowd would show up. If that mass changed hours it wouldn't be as busy. Think of that on a much larger scale.

For traffic this might help. Tuesday to Thursday come in. Monday and Friday telecommute. I'd argue the state is influential enough that the private sector and non profits might adjust the same way and other states in the region.

[msRB311]

I would say that anyone who needs to leave their house to go to work should be able to get the vaccine.

[charolastra00]

When I think about risk, I think about the combination of space and time exposed. Even though grocery store workers are exposed to many people, there's lots of ventilation and most peoples' transactions are less than 5 minutes. Contrast that to a teacher who is in a room that is likely poorly ventilated with the same students for long periods of time. Teachers are in a higher risk situation, to me.


But I'm also frustrated for my higher ed colleagues. We were encouraged to open by the state (since so many local businesses rely on our students) but have been cut out of vaccinations. The university I work for has frequent testing and quarantines students who have both tested positive and students in close contact with them. That means that I have colleagues who are forced to go into rooms with students who have covid in order to care for them. They won't get the vaccine until general population because that's not considered communal living by the state. A few friends in the res life field are considered higher risk even though they're young, but they have had to work throughout the pandemic because their housing is attached to their employment. College professors and other student-facing staff who are in-person don't get to be vaccinated with K-12 teachers, despite working with a populations that has particularly high spread rates.