Gov. Charlie holding his Friday press briefing. Baker announces a drive-thru testing center for first responders @ Gillette Stadium parking lot. Opens Sunday and will test 200 first responders a day in partnership with state agencies, the Patriots & Quest Diagnostics. #mapoli
Baker announces a “Covid-19 Community Tracing Collaborative” that the state is aiming to staff by the end of the month. “There is tracing happening now but this program that we’re talking about launching today is a much more robust targeted approach,” Baker says.
More on tracing collab: "What we're doing here today is the beginning of breaking of new ground in the fight against Covid-19. Mass. will be the only state in the country putting together this kind of programming. There's no nationwide tracking that's currently being done."
.@JoiaMukherjee, CMO of Partners in Health: "Without knowing our own status, without being able to specifically protect our loved ones, we are all living in the dark. We know that there is significant anxiety in this darkness."
.@JoiaMukherjee on contact tracing: "To me, these are basic bread and butter public health - it will be hard. And we are daunted by the challenge, but we are daunted by the moral need to stop the epidemic. Is it too late? It cannot be too late. We need to mitigate the suffering."
Baker says it's not too late to ramp up contact tracing. "On this particular part of the game we're probably just getting started." State needs a big platform "with a ton of technology, which is where Salesforce and Accenture come in," Baker says.
.@JoiaMukherjee: tracing will be "game changer" to get back to normal. "We could just wait till 60-80% of people are infected and maybe then that level of immunity will start bending the curve down. I don't want to wait that long and I don't think it's humane to wait that long."
Contact tracing program plans to hire about 1,000 people and pay a "decent wage," @JoiaMukherjee says. Looking for people who are tech savvy, can speak to people "kindly" and in multiple languages.
Baker on getting emotional @ Pats plane landing: "Medical personnel, first responders & emergency management personnel are not just putting themselves in harm's way..but they know that they are also putting their family members in harm's way," Baker says.
"These people are putting themselves out there. And it was killing us that we weren't able to solve their problem. So yeah, I got a little worked up about it," Baker says re: getting emotional at Patriots plane landing.
BAKER on those 3 million missing masks:
"I'm assuming they went into the federal stockpile," Baker says. "We've assumed all along they were just confiscated and that they probably ended up in the stockpile."
Mass. ordered masks from BJ's that were 'confiscated' at Port of NY.
"I'm assuming they went into the federal stockpile," Baker says. "We've assumed all along they were just confiscated and that they probably ended up in the stockpile."
Mass. ordered masks from BJ's that were 'confiscated' at Port of NY.
