© 2024 New England Public Media

FCC public inspection files:
WGBYWFCRWNNZWNNUWNNZ-FMWNNI

For assistance accessing our public files, please contact hello@nepm.org or call 413-781-2801.
PBS, NPR and local perspective for western Mass.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

COVID-19 Precaution Campaign, Called #GetBackMass, Built On 'Things We Love'

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito watched as a sample advertisement from the administration's new #GetBackMass campaign played on screens in the Gardner Auditorium during a press conference on Monday, November 23, 2020.
Sam Doran
/
State House News Service
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito watched as a sample advertisement from the administration's new #GetBackMass campaign played on screens in the Gardner Auditorium during a press conference on Monday, November 23, 2020.

Giving hugs, going out dancing, sitting in the stands at Fenway Park, traveling and seeing concerts are among the missed experiences highlighted in a new Massachusetts public awareness campaign that makes the case for keeping up COVID-19 precautions as the best way to return to such activities.

"To get back to the things we want to do and love to do, we need to keep doing the things that we know work: wearing a face covering, avoiding big groups, keeping our distance and getting tested," Gov. Charlie Baker said Monday.

The #GetBackMass ads are slated to run through February, which will mark a year since the first COVID-19 case was detected in Massachusetts. As of Sunday, 200,050 cases had been confirmed in the state.

Baker said Massachusetts has been "aggressive about expanding testing capacity," and called the 110,280 tests reported Sunday, which yielded 2,721 new COVID-19 cases, "obviously a huge number."

"We're going to do what we can to continue to expand our testing infrastructure," Baker said. "But I think one of the things we're wondering about here is whether or not, in fact, that colossal increase we've seen over the past few days, which does appear to be related in some ways to the holidays, is going to continue or actually start to move down, and we won't know that till we get a few more days' worth of data."

The state is having talks with "a number of providers about expanding lab capacity," the governor said, and he expects more capacity to come online "around the middle of December."

Baker said he also wants to see the federal government release funds that have been allocated for COVID-19 testing.

"This is a perfect example of why the current sort of stalemate in Washington, both legislatively and administratively, is such a problem for people who are trying to wrestle through this pandemic," he said. "You would think that even in a state like ours, which has as much access to testing per capita as you're going to find anywhere in the country, is struggling to deliver on the demands and expectations of an appropriately concerned public, this would be a great time for the feds to move forward and release many of those funds that they have, so that people would be able to incorporate that into expanding their testing capacity, and I would like to see that, along with a bunch of other things happen."

Last week, Baker announced plans to make Abbott BinaxNOW rapid antigen tests available to 134 school districts for instances in which students or staff develop COVID-19 symptoms while in school. The Trump administration said last month that it would send more than 2 million of the 15-minute tests to Massachusetts to be distributed at Baker's discretion.

Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders said Monday that the Abbott BinaxNOW testing program will be expanded to include long-term care centers, which will be able to use the tests on individuals entering the facility who are not regular staff, including visitors and nursing-home surveyors.

"We know this time of year can be difficult for many, and particularly in long-term care facilities, and it's important to preserve the quality of life of loved ones in those facilities," Sudders said. "The use of Abbott BinaxNOW testing will continue to allow quality of life to be paramount while also preserving the health and well-being of residents, staff and visitors."

Sudders said that nursing homes and rest homes across the state will now perform weekly surveillance testing of all staff — up from every other week — because of increased community spread of COVID-19.
The secretary also announced $650,000 in grants to community and faith-based organizations, aimed at reducing COVID-19 spread and boosting awareness among communities of color in areas hard-hit by the pandemic.

Twenty organizations (PDF) will receive the grant money.

Related Content