Lawmakers urge Governor Baker to abandon plan to let companions of elderly get vaccine
The Baker administration’s decision to let elderly people and their companions be vaccinated at the same time undermines the goal of equitably protecting state residents and will benefit healthy, white, and wealthier communities at the expense of people of color and the those with major health risks, a group of lawmakers contend.
Led by Representative Tami Gouveia, a Democratic representative
from Acton who holds a doctorate in public health, 13 lawmakers urged Governor Charlie Baker to immediately halt the companion vaccination plan, which began this week for appointments at mass vaccination sites.
“We encourage you to put the companion program on hold until those 65 or older and those with chronic conditions as well as essential workers and our teachers are vaccinated,’’ the lawmakers wrote Baker. ”The companion system will put thousands of healthy adults ahead of those who have the most significant risk of getting and dying from COVID-19.”
The companion plan also will reduce the opportunity for minority community members to keep their appropriate places in the vaccine distribution lines, the lawmakers argued.
“The companion plan is most likely to benefit communities that are white and affluent,” the lawmakers wrote. “This only further exacerbates our state’s health inequities and the burden of COVID-19 on our Black and Brown communities.”
The lawmakers also demanded that Baker shift vaccine distribution away from private companies with minimal track records operating large-scale vaccination programs and redirect that supply to local boards of health who already run annual flu clinics and have been preparing to do the same with the COVID-19 vaccine.
In the letter, the lawmakers asserted that two mass vaccinations sites operated by Curative Inc., in Springfield and Danvers, were badly managed, leading seniors to stand in lines during bitterly cold weather for extended periods of time, and that the company itself is only about a year old with no long-term track record operating logistically complex vaccination programs.
“We encourage your administration to immediately dedicate the time, resources and vaccine doses to local public health departments that are ready and able to quickly stand up their clinics,” the lawmakers wrote. “Many of our local departments are at their wit’s end.”
The lawmakers added that “the state’s over reliance on private, for-profit entities to manage mass vaccination sites is hurting our ability to vaccinate and protect our seniors throughout the Commonwealth.’’
The lawmakers noted that healthy residents have turned to using Craigslist to find elderly in need of rides to mass vaccine centers, saying it raises a safety concern, exposing the elderly to yet another opportunity to fall victim to a COVID-related scams.
.
John R. Ellement can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @JREbosglobe.
