Biddinger analyzes vaccine rollout challenges
By 
Dr. Paul Biddinger, who specializes in emergency preparedness at Massachusetts General Hospital and heads the governor’s COVID-19 vaccination advisory board, says a third of those eligible to be inoculated in Phase 1 haven’t received their shots yet even as Phase 2 begins today.
In an interview on The Codcast, Biddinger acknowledged the ups and downs of the vaccine rollout. “I think there’s obviously been some significant challenges with respect to getting vaccines out and into individuals as quickly as it’s arriving,” he said.
Getting individuals educated about when they can receive a vaccine and how has been an issue, Biddinger acknowledged, adding that there are likely to be more issues that arise in the coming weeks. “The fundamental problem of course, is just that there isn’t enough vaccine to vaccinate everybody,” he said.
The state has not known week to week how much vaccine is arriving, he said. “That means that the state hasn’t been able to tell the hospitals or other vaccinators how much vaccine they’re getting until sometimes a day or two before it arrives,” Biddinger said. This creates problems with hospitals figuring out how many appointments need to be staffed and scheduled. He said the state is now getting several more days’ notice of how much vaccine is arriving each week, which will help with appointment scheduling.
Biddinger acknowledged that people feel frustrated when they have to search in multiple places for vaccination appointments rather than having a centralized booking system. “I think the number of different ways in which people can get vaccinated, whether it’s from their health care system or a mass vaccination site or their public health department or a commercial pharmacy, is a strength, but it’s also a real weakness,” he said. “I would love to weave them all together better and make it easier for people to navigate that.”
Becker’s Hospital Review recently noted Massachusetts ranked 38th in the nation for administration of vaccines, having put 48 percent of shots received into residents’ arms.
“I think there’s clearly ways to improve. There’s no question about that, but I think there are lots of ways to look at the numbers,” said Biddinger. “I think Massachusetts still is a little bit closer to the middle of the country if you just look at percentage of the population that has been vaccinated on a per capita basis.” The state has done well with vaccinating long-term care residents too, he said, ranking eighth in the country on that data point.
“What I care most about is just making sure that the vaccine is, in fact, getting out to people in an equitable and effective way as fast as it can possibly be,” he said.
Phase 1 recipients include hospital and health care workers, nursing home residents and staff, home care employees, emergency personnel, and those living and working in congregate care settings.
The decision was made to “preserve the health care infrastructure to be able to care for ill individuals,” back in October, based on recommendations from health care groups contracted by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. There is also significant overlap between those who work in health care settings and communities of color and other populations hard hit by the virus.
“There’s a very large home health workforce who comes typically from vulnerable communities, often communities with very high prevalence of COVID, and they go home to home. Both for equity and epidemiology reasons, the advisory group felt it was really important to include them,” he said.
Residents in other groups, like educators and grocery workers, have decried being pushed back in the vaccination line after people 65 and older were moved up at the recommendation of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Biddinger said he would like to see teachers vaccinated earlier because of the importance of getting kids back in school, but he pointed out that the CDC issued a “strongly worded recommendation” about how there’s not a lot of evidence for school-based transmission and social distancing and mask wearing seem to be working.
“These are some of the most heart-wrenching kinds of discussions that you can have because you know all of the individuals you’re talking about absolutely are priorities,” he said. The decision about whom to vaccinate first has centered around the “straight mortality risk” faced by older residents with COVID-19, he said, calling age the “single most important variable.”
SARAH BETANCOURT
FROM COMMONWEALTH
The Department of Correction is proposing to photocopy and inspect all incoming mail for prisoners.
The MBTA offers two employees so-called sign-on bonuses to get them on board.
Opinion: Lawrence is no longer a “city of the damned,” says Lane Glenn, the president of Northern Essex Community College. … Aaron Dale and Emily Norton urge young people to consider the potential of unsexy but important water utility jobs. … Michelle Caldeira of Boston Uncornered offers a direct approach to generational urban poverty. … Todd Brown of the Massachusetts Independent Pharmacists Association says we are relying on the wrong pharmacists to carry out vaccinations.
FROM AROUND THE WEB
BEACON HILL
Herald columnist Joe Battenfeld slams new House Speaker Ron Mariano, who he says is out to crack down on outside advocates and greater transparency with his talk of scrutinizing “unregistered, or vaguely affiliated” coalitions.
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
DigBoston notes that for some of his tenure, former Boston Police Commissioner William Gross didn’t have a residence in Boston. The new commissioner, Dennis White, lives in Reading.
HEALTH/HEALTH CARE
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention orders that masks be worn on all forms of public transit and formally extends the federal eviction moratorium until the end of March. (NPR)
UMass Memorial is part of a program to connect vaccine-hesitant residents, particularly from the black and Latino communities, with doctors and scientists to get more information. (MassLive)
The Washington Post looks at the tensions that have emerged nationally as essential workers get bumped back in line for a COVID vaccine as states prioritize those 65 and older.
DIY virus testing programs are popping up in Massachusetts as communities and organizations respond to the faltering state and federal testing efforts. (Boston Globe) Last month, CommonWealth spotlighted one such initiative in the small Worcester County town of Harvard.
WASHINGTON/NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL
President Biden is set to meet with Republican senators today to iron out issues related to his $1.9 trillion coronavirus aid issues they want to address. (Associated Press)
Former president Donald Trump’s impeachment legal defense team abruptly resigned over the weekend, reportedly because Trump insisted that their arguments include his false claims of election fraud costing him the election. A new team of lawyers was named to take their place. (Washington Post)
US Rep. Stephen Lynch tests positive for COVID-19. He has been vaccinated and is not showing symptoms of illness. (MassLive)
Joe Kennedy accepts a job as a CNN commentator. (Associated Press)
ELECTIONS
The New York Times rolls out an in-depth look — with seven reporters’ bylines — at the 77 days between the election and the inauguration, in which former president Donald Trump and his allies promoted and stoked the baseless claim that he lost the race due to widespread voter fraud.
State legislators have introduced numerous proposals to expand vote-by-mail permanently. (Salem News)
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
The Telegram & Gazette profiles Worcester’s struggling “restaurant row.”
A commerce center at Brayton Point in Somerset is seeking to generate funds as it waits for tenants, and at least two years to be tied into the electric grid. (Herald News)
State GDP growth outpaced the nation’s in the last three months of 2020 but represented a sharp downturn from the third quarter. (MassLive)
EDUCATION
A Globe editorial says Boston Marty Walsh will leave the city’s schools in some ways worse off than he found them, with multiple crises falling into the lap of soon-to-be acting mayor Kim Janey and the winner of this fall’s mayoral election.
The Haverhill School Committee wants to open up classrooms for children of front-line workers who are learning remotely but need somewhere to go during the day. (Eagle-Tribune)
ARTS/CULTURE
The 71-year-old Bing Arts Center in Springfield runs out of money amid the pandemic and is put up for sale. (MassLive)
Black leaders in Boston are pushing for recognition of David Walker, a fiery 19th century black abolitionist in the city who has been all but forgotten in the popular history accounts of the effort. (Boston Globe)
ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT
The Baker administration’s approach to reducing vehicle emissions leans heavily toward dramatically increasing electric cars, with far less attention to public transit efforts, bicycling, or pedestrian-friendly changes. (Boston Globe)
Neighbors of the contaminated former Varian site in Beverly say there are high levels of toxic chemicals running through a nearby stream. (Salem News)
CRIMINAL JUSTICE/COURTS
A federal grand jury is now looking into how former Methuen police chief Joseph Solomon and a top deputy landed outlandish salaries exceeding $400,000 per year in the small Merrimack Valley city. (Boston Globe)
A convicted murderer is given rare medical parole – while he is on a ventilator after contracting COVID-19 in prison. (MassLive) Norfolk and Plymouth county jails are seeing an uptick in dozens of COVID-19 cases among inmates in the past few days. (Patriot Ledger)
MEDIA
The Telegram & Gazette, which had been giving visitors to its website seven free stories a month, announces that it will now make more of its content available exclusively to subscribers.
The Columbia Journalism Review assesses the tenure of Marty Baron at the Washington Post. Baron formerly headed the Boston Globe.
New York Times reporter Donald McNeil Jr. was disciplined for making racist comments, including use of the n-word, as a host on a student trip to Peru in 2019. Executive editor Dean Baquet said he concluded McNeil exercised poor judgment but his intentions were not hateful or malicious. (The Daily Beast)
Fourteen weekly newspapers in New Jersey announce they intend to transition to nonprofit status. (Bernardsville News)
Louis D. Cabot, a pillar of the Boston business establishment and former president and chairman of Cabot Corporation, founded by his grandfather, died at age 99. (Boston Globe)