MORE THAN ONE-QUARTER of Massachusetts adults say they needed behavioral health care over the first year of the pandemic – but many of them never got it. They couldn’t get an appointment, or they couldn’t afford it, or they felt the stigma of needing mental health care, according to survey data. A new report by […]
COVID-19
Posted inEducation
Baker hints school mask mandate may be nearing end
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE TWO EAST COAST states on Monday attached end dates to their school mask mandates, spelling out timelines that Gov. Charlie Baker described as “pretty consistent” with Massachusetts policy. The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education rule requiring students and teachers in most K-12 schools to wear masks indoors is in place […]
Posted inState House News Service, Uncategorized
COVID spending bill grows to $101m, passes within hours
A $55 MILLION COVID-related spending bill ballooned into a $101 million bill under an agreement reached between House and Senate negotiators, which lawmakers sent to Gov. Charlie Baker’s desk just hours after the compromise was announced. Initially, the House had proposed spending $55 million on expanding COVID testing sites, increasing vaccination rates among children, and […]
Posted inThe Download
Baker mask mandate, no longer in effect, facing challenge
The statewide mask mandate is no longer in effect, but litigation over it continues. The Supreme Judicial Court on Wednesday will hear oral arguments in a case challenging Gov. Charlie Baker’s legal authority to require mask-wearing inside private businesses. The case involves Arianna Murrell, who banned the use of masks inside her Lynn tax preparation […]
Posted inUncategorized
Baker mask mandate, no longer in effect, facing challenge
THE STATEWIDE MASK mandate is no longer in effect, but litigation over it continues. The Supreme Judicial Court on Wednesday will hear oral arguments in a case challenging Gov. Charlie Baker’s legal authority to require mask-wearing inside private businesses. The case involves Arianna Murrell, who banned the use of masks inside her Lynn tax preparation […]
Posted inEducation
Top Baker aides urge colleges to lead Mass. into endemic
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE TWO BAKER ADMINISTRATION Cabinet secretaries late last week urged college and university presidents to eschew strict campus-wide COVID-19 protocols and instead put their institutions at the forefront of the state’s transition of the pandemic “into an endemic, a highly contagious virus that is manageable and allows us to regain a sense […]
Posted inThe Download
Making sense of COVID policies in schools
Students are contracting COVID-19, occasionally in school – but medical experts say school is the safest place for kids. Parents are urged to vaccinate their children against COVID, though children are unlikely to get seriously ill. State policymakers are encouraging schools to increase one form of COVID testing, while ramping down another. Education policy during […]
Posted inEducation
Making sense of COVID policies in schools
STUDENTS ARE CONTRACTING COVID-19, occasionally in school – but medical experts say school is the safest place for kids. Parents are urged to vaccinate their children against COVID, though children are unlikely to get seriously ill. State policymakers are encouraging schools to increase one form of COVID testing, while ramping down another. Education policy during […]
Posted inHealth Care
Nearly half of COVID hospitalizations called ‘incidental’
CLOSE TO HALF of the patients being hospitalized in Massachusetts for COVID-19 are incidental cases, meaning they tested positive for the virus while being treated primarily for other issues. The new information, released for the first time on Thursday, suggests the wave of COVID-19 cases filling up hospitals may not be as severe a problem […]
Posted inEducation, Health Care
Baker expands test-and-stay to early childhood centers
GOV. CHARLIE BAKER announced Wednesday that he is expanding the state’s test-and-stay program to early childhood centers, so that children exposed to COVID at daycare do not have to quarantine. The announcement came one day after Baker gave schools the flexibility to eliminate test-and-stay in public K-12 schools, in favor of a weekly at-home testing option. Baker, at a […]