MA News: vaccine required for nursing home workers; contact tracing extended; ballot question proposals filed

 COVID-19 vaccine requirements

"GOV. CHARLIE BAKER announced Wednesday that the state will require all nursing home and long-term care facility staff to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 by October 10.  

The decision marks an evolution for the Republican governor, who has resisted imposing vaccine mandates on public employees. The decision is intended to protect the population most vulnerable to COVID-19 — the elderly. Some major area hospitals have issued similar mandates to protect vulnerable patients."

Continue reading the article online 

https://commonwealthmagazine.org/health-care/baker-order-requires-nursing-home-staff-to-be-vaccinated/ 

Contact tracing extended to 2021 year end

"THE STATE’S CONTACT tracing effort is ramping up again in the midst of a resurgence in COVID-19 cases. 

The program was scheduled to shut down in September but instead the contract with the operator, the nonprofit Cambridge-based Partners in Health, is being extended through the end of the year. The number of contract tracers, currently at 130, is also being increased by as much as 300."

Continue reading the article online

https://commonwealthmagazine.org/health/contact-tracing-ramping-up-yet-again/ 

Ballot question proposals filed

"PROPONENTS FILED 30 ballot questions with the attorney general’s office on Wednesday in an attempt to circumvent Beacon Hill and win approval directly from voters in 2022 for laws dealing with the gig economy, voting, hospital operations, newborn babies, the Transportation Climate Initiative, smoking, the sale of alcohol, and assorted other matters.

Most of the proposals are unlikely to make it on to the ballot because, even if they pass muster on constitutional grounds with Attorney General Maura Healey’s office, they would still require the gathering of more than 93,000 voter signatures, a time-consuming and expensive process. Several of the proposals were filed in multiple forms in an effort to increase their chances of gaining approval from Healey’s office."

Continue reading the article online

https://commonwealthmagazine.org/politics/from-gig-economy-to-tci-30-ballot-questions-filed/

MA News

Franklin Public Schools, MA: Updated Close Contact Requirements and Quarantine Calculation

"Updated Close Contact Requirements and Quarantine Calculation sheets can be found on our Reopening Website under the Health Office tab.  These reflect the new 3 foot guidance in classrooms and on buses."

https://t.co/XlqjKppZjN  or https://sites.google.com/franklinps.net/returntoschoolplan/health-office-information

Shared from Twitter:  https://t.co/Nb3wjuR9VN

Franklin Public Schools, MA: Updated Close Contact Requirements and Quarantine Calculation

COVID-19 Update on Contact Tracting from Gvernor Baker - April 30, 2020

"Governor Charlie Baker, Lt. Governor Karyn Polito and HHS Secretary Marylou Sudders provided an update on the Commonwealth's response to COVID-19, including the latest on the Community Tracing Collaborative, the Reopening Advisory Board, and a new request related to FEMA reimbursements"

https://youtu.be/1r6MjVAtwLo




How can I verify MA COVID Team is calling?

"Our phone calls will use the prefix 833 and 857 and your phone will say the call is from “MA COVID Team.” Calls will be made daily from 8 a.m. to 8 PM"

COVID-19 Update on Contact Tracting

Boston Globe: Contact tracing background; high school 'lost year'?

From the Boston Globe, articles of interest to Franklin:

Contact tracing background

"Dr. Emily Wroe started working for Boston-based Partners in Health, the renowned global health nonprofit, while still a Harvard medical student. She worked with the government of Rwanda to build a modern hospital in the country’s poor northern region, perched on a terraced hilltop surrounded by subsistence farms. Later, in Malawi, she treated patients with tuberculosis and HIV, working with community health workers to track down sick patients by foot and, sometimes, motorbike.

Now she’s building a new squad of public health workers. Only this one is based in Massachusetts and it’s a virtual one, 1,000-people strong. Their mission is to track down every person in the state who comes in close contact with an infected person and help them isolate, thereby slowing the spread of the deadly virus.

And this time, the tracking will be done by telephone.

Wroe is part of the Partners in Health team charged with creating the state’s ambitious contact tracing program, which Governor Charlie Baker announced earlier this month. The administration, which has allotted $44 million to the program, sees contact tracing as a key piece of its plan to eventually open the economy up and allow people to venture out again, without fear of infection."

Continue reading the article online (subscription may be required)
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/04/25/metro/way-out-inside-ambitious-mass-coronavirus-contact-tracing-effort/

Hard, maybe cruel even, but better a 'lost year' than losing 'a life'

"Catari Giglio did everything she could to make the senior prom at Fenway High School picture perfect. She had the elegant gown, the handsome date; she had even designed the tickets for the big event.

Vivian Santos-Smith had a lead role in Somerville High School’s production of “As You Like It.” As winter turned to spring, and set and costumes came together, she spent hours memorizing her famous speech, the one that begins “All the world’s a stage …”

Mairead Baker, valedictorian at Boston Latin Academy, was writing the graduation speech that she would deliver to hundreds of beaming teachers and families, reflecting on the hard lessons of her past.

Like 80,000 other high school seniors across Massachusetts who learned this week that their schools will remain closed through June, they know their personal disappointments are a small price to pay to help end a global pandemic. But for young people whose lives have been defined by school since the age of 5 — who were on a path to high school graduation before they knew the word “commencement” — it was a stunning reversal of fortune, their most assured milestones disappearing in an instant."

Continue reading the article online (subscription may be required)
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/04/25/nation/lost-year-high-school-seniors-reflect-glory-days-theyll-never-have

Boston Globe: Contact tracing background; high school 'lost year'?