COVID-19 Massachusetts State House Update 4-24-20
- As of Wednesday night, DPH reported a total of 46,023 cases. The state has now confirmed a total of 2,360 deaths from the virus.
- Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said he was unable to confidently predict that the Boston Marathon will in fact be held on the rescheduled September date he announced last month, saying only that he’s “hopeful” the event will occur.
- Walsh, in response to a question at his daily press conference, brought up that he had noticed that organizers of the Berlin Marathon, also planned for September, had just canceled that event in Germany.
- Instead of holding the marathon on Patriots Day, officials last month rescheduled it to Sept. 14, the first postponement in the marathon’s 124-year history.
- A Governor Baker bill declaring the rescheduled marathon date as a state holiday remains pending before the House Ways and Means Committee.
- Labor officials reported another wave of surging new unemployment claims Thursday, bringing the total in Massachusetts over the past five weeks to more than 650,000, largely ex-workers whose employers are in forced shutdowns.
- Between April 12 and April 18, 4.4 million more Americans and 80,345 more Massachusetts residents filed initial unemployment claims, according to data released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Labor.
- Both new figures were the lowest increases since late March, but still several times higher than any pre-pandemic record.
- Weekly initial claims in Massachusetts during the coronavirus era peaked at 181,423 between March 22 and March 28.
- New Massachusetts claims over the past five weeks alone represent more than 17 percent of the state’s labor force.
- In the midst of five straight weeks of surging unemployment claims, Governor Baker asked the federal government for a $1.2 billion loan to help Massachusetts meet unprecedented needs and ensure that people do not suffer through payless paydays.
- Baker wrote to U.S. Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia on April 6 requesting the funding, an administration spokesperson confirmed. His letter is attached.
- A trio of hospital executives joined Governor Baker on Thursday to warn against a new trend, people with serious medical conditions staying away from hospitals out of fear of COVID-19 and facing dangerous repercussions later.
- Massachusetts gaming regulators are looking to Macau, China, for insights into what a safe and effective reopening of casinos here might take.
- Massachusetts casinos have been closed since March 15 and will remain shuttered until at least May 4.
- During Thursday’s Gaming Commission meeting, Chairwoman Cathy Judd-Stein said there is no concrete timeline for reopening but the commission is beginning to think about it.
- Several of the leading medical experts who developed the state’s controversial plan to ration access to life-saving equipment like ventilators if the surge of coronavirus patients overwhelmed the hospital system say they no longer believe those standards will be necessary.
- The committee of doctors, public health experts and medical ethicists that developed the crisis standards of care revised their two-week-old guidelines this week to reflect concerns voiced by state and federal lawmakers about their impact on underserved minority communities.
- Massachusetts received more than 200,000 new COVID-19 testing swabs on Wednesday, a supply Governor Baker said will be used to support the mobile testing program for nursing homes, rest homes and assisted living facilities as well as to help health care providers in underserved areas expand their daily testing capacity.
- The House and Senate both met Thursday.
- Two bills dealing with strengthening local and regional public health systems (H 4503) and allowing for virtual notarization via video conferencing (S 2645) are heading to Gov. Charlie Baker’s desk on Thursday after both branches enacted them during day-long informal sessions.
- House lawmakers also passed a bill (H 4672) that would require the Department of Public Health to report more detailed COVID-19 data.
- The House plans to meet next on Monday at 11 a.m. in an informal session
- Lawmakers used a supplemental budget (H 4354) as a vehicle, reporting it in part with only the two COVID-19 components.
- DPH already publishes daily updates on the spread of the highly infectious virus in Massachusetts, but the legislation would legally require the department to report several specific categories, including the gender, race and ethnicity, municipality of residence, and age of everyone who was tested, tested positive, hospitalized or died from COVID-19.
- The bill also creates a task force to develop recommendations on how to remove barriers to equitable health care, improve access to personal protective equipment, and boost access to testing and information for underserved populations.
- Under the language, the task force would be required to file an interim report by June 1 and a final report by Aug. 1.
- The Senate sent two COVID-19-related bills to Governor Baker’s desk Thursday, to allow notaries public to utilize videoconferencing technology and to strengthen local boards of health.
- Senators also passed a Ways and Means bill governing transitional assistance program benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic, and adopted a new draft of an unemployment insurance bill which Sen. Michael Rodrigues said would “balance” divergent approaches taken in House and Senate versions.
- While the branches have mainly focused on bills related to the current public health emergency, the Senate also adopted a bevy of extension orders to give committees yet more time to work on other legislation in their custody.
- The Senate is back on Monday at 11 a.m
- Rep. Ted Speliotis (D-Danvers) who has served in the Massachusetts House for 16 terms, joined a growing list of senior lawmakers when he announced Thursday that he won’t seek re-election this fall.
- The Danvers Democrat, had he sought and won re-election this fall, would have become the Dean of the House next session.
- Other incumbents not returning to the hill include (with the year they took office): Reps. Angelo Scaccia (1973), Thomas Petrolati (1987), Louis Kafka (1991), Elizabeth Poirier (1999), Denise Provost (2006), Jonathan Hecht (2009), Randy Hunt (2011), Aaron Vega (2013), Daniel Cullinane (2013), Roselee Vincent (2014), Jose Tosado (2015), and Stephan Hay (2016).
- Nearly 40 state lawmakers sent Gov. Charlie Baker a letter Thursday urging his administration to speed up the screening and release of inmates from Massachusetts penal institutions. The text is attached.
- A ‘Liberate Massachusetts’ rally in front of Governor Baker’s house Thursday drew more reporters, law enforcement and supporters of the governor than idiot protesters.
- Senator Elizabeth Warren’s eldest brother died from the coronavirus earlier this week, the Massachusetts Democrat revealed Thursday.
