The head of the state firefighters’ union said he fears that its members will end up being vaccinated with hoses due to the state’s “lack of coordination and communication”.
Richard MacKinnon Jr., president of the Massachusetts Professional Firefighters union, said the state is leaving vaccinations for first responders to local health councils to vaccinate jakes – and this is ending with mixed results.
“It looks like there was a lack of a plan,” MacKinnon told the Herald on Tuesday. “It is just a general lack of coordination and communication”.
MacKinnon said he is not blaming health councils, which in smaller cities simply do not have many employees and are already overwhelmed. Instead, the state should take the reins and establish vaccination centers, he said – or just train some of the jakes, many of whom are already paramedics or paramedics, and let them do it themselves.
“Massachusetts has not yet provided a date, time or place for vaccinations,” the union tweeted on Tuesday. “Most of our members are paramedics and paramedics, which would allow us to give each other vaccines.”
The COVID-19 Response Command Center said in a statement that the state is “actively working” with local health departments, local hospitals and other medical service providers to discover the ability to vaccinate people – and to identify locations where the first respondents can be vaccinated, a spokeswoman said.
“The first respondents are prioritized in the first phase of the state’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution plan and, based on current estimates, the state is planning to start vaccinating the police, fire and EMS in mid-January,” said the door. – Kate Reilly. “The Command Center and the Public Security Executive Office are waiting for this week’s meeting with the first respondents to review the planning that is underway to raise vaccination sites. More information will be made available as this process progresses. “
She said the state will publish an initial list of sites by the end of the month, and more providers will be added as soon as they identify capacity. Reilly said the state is “actively searching” for sites and identifying clinical partners to defend mass vaccination sites, which will be launched in early 2021.
MacKinnon, a Whitman firefighter, said that currently 805 of his union’s more than 12,000 members have COVID-19, in addition to another 650 who are quarantined. He said the cases remain on the rise.