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Buddy System Offered To Boost 75-And-Over Vaccinations

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker tours the mass vaccination site at DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel in Danvers.
Jonathan Wiggs
/
Boston Globe / Pool / State House News Service
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker tours the mass vaccination site at DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel in Danvers.

Anyone — but only one person — who accompanies a Massachusetts senior resident 75 or older to get a COVID-19 vaccine at one of the state's mass vaccination sites will be eligible starting Thursday to get a shot themselves, Gov. Charlie Baker said, detailing a new plan to try to reach as many elderly residents as possible.

Baker said the new policy was designed to better reach a population that he described as being at a significantly higher risk of being hospitalized or dying from COVID-19 as those even slightly younger.

With a little over a week of experience vaccinating the 75-and-older population, the governor said health officials have learned that many "might be hesitant to go to a mass vaccination site without a relative or a caregiver."

"We want to make sure that we make it as easy as we possibly can for folks who fall into that over 75 category to get vaccinated, and to get vaccinated early," Baker said.

The change, however, encountered swift pushback online and in other forums from some lawmakers and public health advocates who worried the policy could exacerbate already stark inequities in the distribution of vaccines.

Other residents expressed frustration that they or someone they knew who is still ineligible to be vaccinated had already brought a loved one over 75 to get a shot, or questioned the decision to allow younger healthier residents to jump ahead of people with underlying health risks and those between the ages of 65 to 74.

Baker defended his choice to move ahead with the policy, suggesting that in many cases it could be spouses or relatives in their mid-60s to early 70s who end up accompanying the older residents to get the vaccine.

"I think what's more likely to happen is you'll get more of the 75-year-old community to come and get vaccinated because they'll be willing to ask someone to help them come with them, and that will make it easier to move into the next round," Baker said.

The governor announced the new companion policy from the DoubleTree Hotel in Danvers where he, Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito and Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders were touring one of the four state mass vaccination sites currently operating.

The sites are at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Fenway Park in Boston, the Eastfield Mall in Springfield and the DoubleTree Hotel in Danvers. The Reggie Lewis Center in Roxbury is open to Boston residents and being operated by the city, but will soon transition to a mass vaccination site run by the state.

Baker also announced that two more mass vaccination sites at the Natick Mall and the former Circuit City in Dartmouth will open later this month with the capacity at first to administer 500 shots a day at each site.

The Natick site will partner with LabCorp to begin vaccinating Massachusetts residents on Feb. 22, ramping up to as many as 3,000 doses a day. The Dartmouth location will open two days later on Feb. 24 in partnership with Curative. That site will eventually have the capacity to handle 2,000 patients a day.

Appointments for the new sites will go online beginning Feb. 18.

"We've been picking up the pace and we're on track to have over 1 million doses administered very soon," Baker said.

The Department of Public Health reported Tuesday that of the 1,283,700 vaccine doses shipped to Massachusetts so far, 910,412 doses had been administered, or about 70.9 percent.

With Massachusetts now receiving about 108,000 doses of Pfizer and Moderna vaccine a week from the federal government, Baker and Sudders said the state will post 100,000 first-dose appointments this week, including 74,000 new appointments that will be added online on Thursday.

Thirty new new retail pharmacy sites are also opening at CVS and Walgreens locations around the state, and Sudders said 30,000 of the new appointments will be at pharmacies. CVS will add 21,000 appointments Thursday, with 3,000 new time slots added daily Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Walgreens is scheduling 7,620 appointments this week, including 1,000 new appointments released each day, while Wegmans, Big Y and Price Chopper have 3,100 appointments this week and Stop and Shop and Hannaford have 2,000 slots.

"Ultimately we have to rely on a supply we receive form the federal government, but we will be ready to do more when more vaccine is available," Baker said.

Asked during an earlier briefing about providers reportedly giving away unused shots to patients regardless of eligibility if the doses had been thawed but not used before the end of the day, Sudders said that is not the state's official policy, but the administration also does not want to see doses wasted.

As of last week, the administration's COVID Command Center said 1,096 doses of Moderna and 176 doses of Pfizer vaccines had been reported wasted, or 0.13 percent of the 960,100 doses that had been shipped here.

The decision to allow trusted family, friends, neighbors or caregivers, regardless of age or health status, to get vaccinated along with vulnerable seniors came after consultation with councils on aging and other advocates for older adults.

Joan Hayden Roy, CEO of Elder Services of Merrimack Valley, called it a "game changer" for the home-care provider community and for seniors who might be hesitant to travel to a site like Gillette Stadium, which could be intimidating alone.

"One of the barriers we did see was the fear, the anxiety," Roy said.

Sudders said the hope is that it will provide an "extra level of comfort to those who may be hesitant or don't want to bother their caregiver or loved one or a good friend to book an appointment."

Anyone planning to accompany a senior 75 or older to a mass vaccination site is being asked to book an appointment for themselves on the same day at the same site as close to the same time as the elderly resident as possible.

Baker said staff will do their best to accommodate companions if that is not possible, and Sudders urged seniors not to accept rides or offers of assistance from people they don't know.

Sudders also urged people not to show up early for appointments to avoid creating long lines, which have been reported in Springfield and other locations. Baker called up the National Guard to help deal with logistics and crowd control at the Eastfield Mall and the DoubleTree Hotel vaccination sites after saying for days he didn't think the guard was needed.

While the new policy does not apply to anyone who has already been vaccinated or booked an appointment, the governor said any companion may get their first dose at the same time the senior citizen returns for a second dose.

The Department of Public Health's most recent vaccine progress report from last Thursday reported that 105,681 residents 70 and older had received at least their first dose, and Baker said he would know more Friday about how many people 75 and older had been vaccinated.

Rep. Mike Connolly said the new policy for vaccinating senior companions might "enhance efficiency," but he called it "dubious in terms of advancing equity."

The Cambridge Democrat said the life expectancy in some of the hardest hit communities in Massachusetts is under 75, and he said it was a "kind of a privilege" to have a child or caregiver with the time to take a senior citizen for a vaccination.

"While I can see the value and practicality of this latest move (particularly for couples where one partner is over 75 and one is under 75), this must be paired with a more intensive focus on working with the local partners that are best equipped to serve people most impacted and the most vulnerable where they are at. Otherwise the alarming inequities of the state's vaccine program are apt to persist," Connolly emailed.

Maddie Ribble, the policy director for the Massachusetts Public Health Association, agreed with Connolly, saying the state needed an "all of the above" approach.

"This will help accelerate shots in arms but wo/ MUCH stronger equity measures this seems destined 2 exacerbate the devastating racial inequities we are seeing," Ribble wrote on Twitter.

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