MDP WIRE: Baker’s shutting out local health officials.

Baker’s COVID Response Shuts Out Local Officials, Fails High-Risk Communities

The Baker-Polito vaccine rollout has been sluggish and inconsistent, with local officials begging for more urgency, guidance, and support as Massachusetts falls further behind.

Governor Baker’s vaccine rollout has been slow and disjointed, and it’s dangerous. This week, Baker’s rollout received an ‘F’ in a report from Harvard.
- Massachusetts lags behind every other New England state, ranking close to last in the country in administering the doses allotted to the Commonwealth.
- Massachusetts Democrats in Congress are calling on Baker to fix the “disjointed and cumbersome” sign-up process that’s led to unfilled appointments and wasted vaccines.
- Just today, Democratic leaders in the Legislature announced they will be conducting oversight hearings into Baker’s botched roll-out.
Local leaders and health officials are the ones actually getting the vaccine into the arms of Massachusetts most vulnerable, but Baker’s shutting them out of the rollout.
- From the beginning, the Baker administration has left local leaders in the dark about the vaccination plan, with health officials flagging a lack of communication.
- As Massachusetts lags behind most other states in vaccine distribution, the Baker is halting shipments to trusted local hospitals, and instead diverting their supplies to mass vaccination sites.
- At Baker’s mass vaccination sites, which are few and far between, thousands of appointments can go unfilled and over 1,200 doses--that we know of--have already been thrown out.
- Local health officials in places like Longmeadow and Peabody are the latest to lose their allotments of the vaccine, despite vaccinating hundreds of people with minimal doses wasted.
Baker’s COVID response has failed communities of color, seniors, and folks with disabilities from the beginning, and now, the folks with the highest risk of getting COVID are struggling to get the vaccine.
- The Baker-Polito administration held back COVID data by municipality to delay the revelation that communities of color were being disproportionately affected by the virus.
- Mortality rates among Black and Latino workers in Massachusetts were four times higher than white workers in the first 5 months of the pandemic.
- Baker and his administration are failing to collect required data on race, ethnicity, language, occupation, and disability status of people who test positive for coronavirus.
- Even though Black and brown communities report higher rates of asthma, Baker left the respiratory condition off the eligibility list for Phase 2. Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley and Attorney General Maura Healey called it an issue of justice.
- Baker failed to establish vaccination sites in communities of color, leading to inequities in vaccinations for Black and brown folks and leaving neighborhood leaders to pick up the pieces.
- Congresswoman Ayanna Pressely sent a letter to Baker imploring him to address the stark inequities in his vaccine distribution plan.
- Mass vaccination sites are often located outside of high-risk communities, forcing residents to drive hours just to get vaccinated.
- Baker’s focus on mass vaccination sites fails folks who can’t travel hours to places like Gillette or Fenway, especially seniors and folks with disabilities.
- Baker thought his botched “companion program” would fix the issue, but instead, people online took advantage of his oversight, creating a black market of folks willing to pay to transport seniors to vaccination appointments.
Throughout the pandemic, Democrats have pressured Baker to act with more urgency, but he drags his feet every step of the way.
- As early in the pandemic as March, Baker’s disastrous testing plan prompted Attorney General Maura Healey to pressure him to increase testing and provide greater transparency.
- Democrats like State Senator Julian Cyr and State Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa called on Baker to provide more resources in ‘testing deserts’ on Cape Cod and in Western Massachusetts.
- Springfield’s City Councilors called on the Governor to increase testing to meet the demand in Western Mass.
- Democratic elected officials in south eastern Massachusetts are taking things into their own hands to provide tests for their constituents.
- Local officials begged Baker to take statewide action to stop the spread of COVID, but he ignored those calls and municipal leaders were left to hold the line against the virus.
- Even after local leaders and health experts pressured Baker to respond to the rising number of cases, Baker only took modest steps before the second surge.
- As it became clear Baker had no plan for an effective and equitable vaccine rollout, Assistant Speaker Katherine Clark, Congressman Seth Moulton, House Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka called for an overhaul of the process.
- Baker’s vaccine website is needlessly confusing and difficult to use, and Attorney General Maura Healey blasted the website as “way more complicated than it needs to be.”
- Lawmakers in central Massachusetts have joined the chorus of voices sounding the alarm on the vaccine rollout.
- State legislators demanded that the Baker administration set up a hotline for folks unable to use the complicated website.
Baker’s disastrous vaccine rollout isn’t Baker’s first management failure. From the RMV, to the State Police, to the MBTA, Baker has mismanaged Massachusetts again and again.

Republicans Cave to Extremists Inside Their Party

After House impeachment managers presented a rock-solid case against Donald Trump, Republicans acquiesced to extremists in their own party by voting to acquit.

Most Senate Republicans failed to uphold their duty to the Constitution and the American people by voting to acquit Donald Trump.
- While the majority of Americans wanted the Senate to convict, only a small minority of Senate Republicans had the courage to take that vote.
- Despite this, the vote was the most bi-partisan in history, and a clear rebuke of Trump’s treasonous acts.
- Massachusetts members of Congress did their duty to defend and protect our Constitution, and our Senators know that attacks on our democratic process do not disappear when a term ends.
The GOP lost the White House, the House, and the Senate, yet Republicans in Washington and in Massachusetts still don’t have the backbone to stand up to the extremists in their own Party.
The same day Republicans in the Senate let Trump off the hook, Steve Bannon heaped praise on the disgraced former president at an event with Massachusetts Republicans.
- Even after the insurrection, the MassGOP has remained Trump’s mouthpiece in Massachusetts, applauding Bannon’s goal to “transform the Republican Party into more of a MAGA movement.”
As a Republican leader, Charlie Baker should hold his own Party accountable for the damage they’ve caused. Instead, he remains complicit in his silence.
- Governor Baker called the Black Lives Matter protests and the Capitol insurrection “the same thing”--a message right out of the GOP playbook. This isn’t any different than Trump saying there were “very fine people on both sides” of the white supremacist march on Charlottesville.
- In 2016 and in 2020, Governor Baker blanked his ballot because he “wasn’t pleased with either choice.” Even after the insurrection at the Capitol, he defends this decision.

President Biden Gets to Work for the American People

Following his inauguration, President Biden wasted no time getting to work for the American people. President Biden has signed dozens of executive actions and unveiled the American Rescue plan to get real relief to working folks.

In the first few weeks of his presidency, President Biden has already released a national COVID-19 strategy and signed dozens of executive actions, including:
- Establishing a 100 day masking challenge and implementing a mask mandate on federal property: Setting the example that it is our patriotic duty to wear masks as we fight together against the pandemic.
- Rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement: Making clear that the United States will lead the world in the fight against climate change.
- Rejoining the World Health Organization: Bringing the United States back onto the global health stage; the virus knows no national boundaries, and the United States will work with allies and partners to end the pandemic.
- Pausing federal student loan payments: Providing relief to Americans who are struggling because of the economic recession caused by the pandemic.
- Dissolving the 1776 commission and launching a government-wide initiative directing agencies to review their state of racial equity and determine an action plan to address inequities within 200 days.
President Biden’s American Rescue Plan is an ambitious plan that will deliver direct relief to working families, support small businesses, and provide funding for vaccines, testing, and schools.
- The American Rescue Plan will also deliver desperately needed help to communities across every state — communities that are hurting because of budget shortfalls created by the pandemic.
- President Biden is open to exchanging ideas about the American Rescue Plan, but is uncompromising when it comes to the speed needed to address these immense crises.
- An overwhelming majority of Americans support President Biden’s coronavirus relief agenda, including strong bipartisan support.
The Trump administration botched its vaccine rollout, but President Biden is delivering for the American people and continues to ramp up vaccine production and distribution.
- The U.S. is now administering an average of more than 1.5 million doses per day and the administration is on track to exceed its goal of 100 million vaccine doses in Biden’s first 100 days.
- The Biden administration is also deploying more than 1,000 active-duty troops to assist state vaccination efforts.
- President Biden has invoked the Defense Production Act to maximize production of vaccines and other critical supplies.
- Last week, the Biden administration announced that the United States had secured 600 million COVID vaccine doses by the end of July, more than a month earlier than anticipated.