BOSTON — The pandemic continues to make the holiday season complicated. As people try to finalize plans and determine what is safe, cities and towns are trying to prevent a bigger surge.
The governor has been pushing for people to take advantage of the testing around the state. But today he said they need to work on getting those lines to go away.
“A lot of the decisions we make about testing have to be done on terms and approvals from the federal level,” Gov. Charlie Baker said.
Baker said they are working with the federal government to streamline testing protocols to help shorten lines. “We’re also making progress on creating additional testing capacity that gets beyond the traditional way it has been done to date."
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh also gave a pandemic update, sharing how the city will now release more health data twice per week. Boston’s Chief of Health and Human Services said the city’s testing requires an appointment, so lines have not been long.
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“Sometimes people want to show up and get tested without an appointment, it is a challenge for our first responders for that process. You make an appointment and get a test same day, it is possible,” Boston Chief of Health and Human Services Marty Martinez said.
The mayor is urging people to continue testing but also made it clear the personal decisions made about celebrating Thanksgiving will determine what early December will look like.
“It’s within our own ability to get these numbers down. We have to do everything we can,” Walsh said.
With news of a potential vaccine, the governor said it is still early for a distribution plan, but he said the federal government would be the lead. “Because the federal government is the key player on the approvals and a big piece on the spending that is attached to this, as well as paying for the vaccine when it starts to be distributed."
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