‘I called my primary care office and they did not hear anything. I called the city nurse and she did not know. I asked and asked and asked, ‘said McQuilken, who wrongly remarked that he was able to ask, because’ if you’re in the 75-year-old group, you’re in contact with medical persons. ‘
Tens of thousands of older residents of Massachusetts are in the same place as McQuilken. The second phase of the implementation of the Baker administration, which includes seniors, was set in February in a timetable announced last month. People 75 and older are supposed to be at the front of the queue.
But civil servants only notified home health workers last week – a much smaller group that would be vaccinated in January – that their injections would only start on February 1.
This in turn could delay the vaccination of the 450,000 residents with a high risk of more than 75 – which has almost tripled the number of residents vaccinated since the state took office last month. And a recommendation issued by the Trump administration on Tuesday calling on states to vaccinate all Americans as young as 65 could make the state’s job even more difficult. Governor Charlie Baker said the state would ask its COVID-19 advisory panel to consider lowering the age limit to 65 for the next round of vaccinations.
Elderly people and their advocates say that the delay in vaccinations for home health workers is already increasing the risk for residents of the country who rely on them for help bathing, dressing and preparing meals. “These workers are out of the community and need to be vaccinated as soon as they can,” said Lisa Gurgone, executive director of Mass Home Care, which provides services to about 60,000 elderly people across the state.
Access to the vaccine strongly depends on where older residents live. Those in nursing homes or other long-term care facilities are already being vaccinated. But residents over the age of 75 live in low-income senior housing run by public housing authorities, and some non-profit organizations are waiting to hear when and where they will be vaccinated. Many have been caged in their apartments for months and are experiencing physical and cognitive decline.
“You have this patchwork approach,” says Andrew DeFranza, executive director of Harborlight Community Partners, a nonprofit that operates half a dozen subsidized senior housing areas in Beverly, Rockport and Ipswich. “These are very vulnerable, very vulnerable people who live in affordable senior housing but who are not yet able to receive vaccination.”
Government officials sent the first vaccines to hospitals and long-term care facilities, premises with employees qualified to administer vaccines. But the logistics became more complicated this week when the state designated 119 smaller and more scattered sites, including schools and senior centers, to vaccinate first responders such as police, firefighters and emergency medical technicians. Some of these sites can also be used for the elderly and the general population as the rollout expands.
The challenges will increase again when injections begin for more than 75 residents living independently or in senior housing not covered in phase 1 vaccinations, a group larger than the first three combined. And the pressure to increase the rate of vaccinations is increasing.
“Everyone feels we can’t get it fast enough,” said Elissa Sherman, president of Leading Age Massachusetts, which represents older service providers and nonprofit senior housing operators. ‘Older adults have the [pandemic] burden now for ten long months, and everyone is eager to get the vaccine as soon as possible. ”
Baker said on Tuesday that Gillette Stadium in Foxborough had been named the state’s first local “mass vaccination site”. The site is operated by CIC Health, with Brigham and Women’s Hospital serving as medical director and Fallon Ambulance supporting the staff, the governor said.
Vaccinations of first responders will begin on Thursday, initially serving about 300 people a day, but will eventually rise to about 5,000 a day and “over time could be a much larger number,” Baker said.
The governor said his government, which had administered 141,000 vaccines since last Thursday, was accelerating the vaccine’s explosion. But he said it depends on the allocation of vaccines coordinated by the federal government, which gives the states brief notice of when doses will be sent.
“We will move as fast as the distribution plan moves,” Baker said. By last Thursday, the state reported receiving 328,000 doses, not nearly enough to move on to the next vaccination phase.
The new federal recommendation could complicate a difficult task for Massachusetts officials by making another 560,000 residents between the ages of 65 and 74 eligible for a vaccination. Baker said his COVID-19 advisory committee would study the plan, although other governors, including Governor Andrew Cuomo in New York, said they would no longer be eligible for age 65.
Some public health experts have questioned how realistic the Trump administration proposal is, given the slow pace of implementation so far and the many barriers to vaccinations.
“Currently, the country is nowhere near vaccinating everyone in the first group of priority groups,” said Dr. Howard Koh, a professor at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, and a former U.S. health secretary in the Obama administration said. “We need much more detailed information on whether available vaccine doses can also meet the need to cover those over 65 years of age.”
Residents over the age of 75 living in nursing homes and assistance centers have already received their first vaccine shots through a federal pharmacy partnership that has contracted with CVS and Walgreens to operate on-site clinics. The pharmacy businesses also started clinics at rest homes this week, as well as at certain private residences and retirement communities for continuing care, where residents have access to multiple levels of care on one campus.
“As soon as people are vaccinated, we will reopen community life. People are hungry for it, ”said Amy Schectman, president of 2Life Communities, saying residents are mostly confined to their rooms at the subsidized senior residences of her organization in Brighton, Brookline, Newton and Framingham.
Residents of other affordable housing units, including those run by more than 200 public housing authorities, have not been given the opportunity to sign up with the federal pharmacy program – and they do not know why.
“Our residents are among the lowest-income seniors in the state, and they still need to be placed on a schedule where they can be vaccinated and return to normal,” said David Hedison, executive director of the Chelmsford Housing Authority and president. of the Massachusetts chapter of the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials. “All elderly people in subsidized housing must receive the vaccine.”
Martin Finucane of the Globe staff contributed to this story.
Robert Weisman can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeRobW.