WORCESTER UMass Memorial Medical Center is expecting to get the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine Tuesday, and will start vaccinating caregivers Thursday morning.
“As our CEO said, ‘for the first time during this whole pandemic we have the chance to play offense,’ UMass Memorial spokesman Tony Berry said, quoting UMass Memorial Health Care President and CEO Dr. Eric Dickson.
Dr. Michael Hirsh, the city s medical director, said he had similar sentiments.
“I feel very encouraged that we’re finally going to be available to start attacking rather than always defending,” Hirsh said.
He called Monday a “historic,” and admitted he got a little misty-eyed watching a nurse from New York be given the COVID-19 vaccine that morning.
UMass Memorial expecting 1,950 COVID vaccines Tuesday
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UMass Memorial expects first vaccines Tuesday
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The Food and Drug Administration cleared the two-dose COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, for emergency use on Friday, and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a final clearance on Saturday.JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images
As Pfizer plans to begin shipping doses of the first COVID-19 vaccine approved by American regulators for emergency use Sunday, a host of new restrictions on business activities go into effect in Massachusetts, where the death toll has passed 11,000.
Massachusetts expects to receive 59,475 doses in its first shipment, which could land in the state Monday or Tuesday, according to Dr. Paul Biddinger, who led the stateâs vaccine advisory group.
COVID clusters and in-person learning; as cases rise can we keep our kids in school?
Updated Dec 12, 2020;
In Framingham, Superintendent Robert Tremblay said he has noticed something alarming: cases of coronavirus were starting to spread among students.
This fall, Massachusetts education officials have said schools are not leading to significant spread of the virus among children. But some districts, like Framingham and Billerica, have reported transmission they believe occurred in buildings.
“So for whatever the CDC might be saying or whatever the governor or the commissioner of education may be saying, that it’s safe to come back to school and schools are not the nexus of where spread is happening, we have evidence to the contrary in our community. And maybe we’re an anomaly, but it’s a concern and it’s one we have to be paying close attention to,” Tremblay said last week during a school committee meeting.