Gov. Baker Gives Coronavirus Update After Touring Mask Decontamination Site
We, expanded, access to, the free and priority, kovat 19 testing, sites for. First responders to now include grocery, store and supermarket, workers, starting. Today the, men and women who provide critical, access to. Food and other necessities, can. Schedule an appointment to, receive Kovan 19. Testing. At the Gillette Stadium in Foxboro and at the biggie Fairgrounds. In West Springfield, if. Someone wants to get tested, you can make an appointment in advance with your soup by your supervisor or, your manager and you do not need to be symptomatic. To be tested, I. Also. Authorized, the activation. Of an additional, 3,000, national national Massachusetts. National Guard military, personnel. To, support our kovat 19, response, if necessary, this. Order raises, the total authorization. Of up to 5,000. Members statewide, who, may be tasked with supporting, requests, from, state agencies for. Equipment logistics. Warehousing, and, related, duties and, many of the assignments, they've got so, far I've also involved supporting, our communities, we're. Taking these necessary, steps to ensure, we're doing everything we can to keep the residents of Massachusetts safe. And, especially our frontline health care workers as. We continue to take measures to plan for the surge we. Continue, to chase more personal. Protective, equipment and. We're working as hard as we can to make sure we have enough, equipment to, keep all frontline, health care workers safe while, still being able to support their, patients, this. Remains one of the biggest challenges, but, solutions, like the one we're visiting here today will, help us aggressively, use every means necessary to. Make sure people have the gear they need, we. Found with creative ways to track down more and more PPE, and we'll continue doing, so in order to get more to the people that are battling this disease head, on but. Today lieutenant governor Pulido mayor, joker - Tony and, I had the opportunity to Earth tour this facility, which, houses Patel's, critical. Care decontamination. System, which. Will be able to sterilize, when. It's fully operational up to 80,000. 95 masks, per day. I'm. Incredibly, grateful for, the support we've received for mayor kurta Tony in the city city of Somerville who, moved heaven and earth under, his emergency, powers to team. Up with Patel, and Partners and stand up this facility, this. Machine will keep more masks, in use and, will sustain our. Personal, protective, equipment supply. Here in Massachusetts. These. Folks have been working day and night to get this bill done to. Test the system and to mobilize it and make it operational, and, we're thankful for their efforts, on, the wall here is their list of sort. Of existing, and prospective customers, and it's, a lot of health care facilities, here in the Commonwealth, whose names would be very familiar to, all of you as. Of yesterday Patel. Also announced, that the service will be free for, Massachusetts, health care providers, thanks. To a federal contract. Good. Things happen sometimes when people work together and this is another great example of, that, the. Machine is well on its way to being able to decontaminate more. And more mass in the next week and. Will be available to any hospital, and first responder, system in the Commonwealth. But. Before I finish I want to spend a minute talking about, our efforts to ensure the Cova 19 information. And services. Are available to people in all communities. Including, non-english, speakers. Yesterday. We announced that, our coven 19 text alerts are now available, in Spanish. You. Can text to kovat, math calc, Ovid na ESP, to. 888, 777, to. Get those alerts in Spanish, as we've, said before the, two on one line is available in over a hundred and fifty languages. And. All of the mass.gov slash. Cova 19 website, is available in 13, languages. We've. Also recognized, that up until now the. Unemployment assistant, Apple assistance, application, process, has, been particularly challenging, for non-english speakers, because, of the legacy UI, form, is not available, in multiple languages, like arrest that the mass.gov website. Is the. Department of unemployment assistance created. Multilingual. Guides to the application. Process to, help meet this need, but, we've been pursuing a better solution especially.
During These times of high, anxiety and. That's why today we, announced the launch of the spanish-language unemployment. Application, form the, form is available at, mass gov, decent. Play oh that. Will ensure spanish-speaking. Residents, who are struggling with the economic, disruption, associated. With this virus can, access unemployment. Services, and benefits, we. Look forward to further improving, our multi-coat, lingual services, for, all residents, of the Commonwealth, and, now I'd like to turn the podium over to our, host. Somerville. Mayor joker. De tony whose, team did a terrific job of, working with botella partners, to, launch this machine thank you. Thank. You governor Baker good. Afternoon, I. Also. First, I want to start off by thanking Governor Baker lieutenant. Governor Pulido and his entire administration, you. Know I I think, I speak on behalf of my colleagues, across the Commonwealth. When. I say one none of us had a playbook, in terms of pandemic response and, this is an effort that requires everybody, working together and. I can attest that Governor, Baker lieutenant, governor Polito have made themselves available, numerous. Times a day. To. Seek collaboration. To seek ideas, to, answer our questions and their comas down a, lot, of times so I thank them well hardly I also. Want to thank our partners. In this in this endeavor Partners HealthCare and Battelle and Federal Realty investment, trust who. Owns this property although, we utilized, the, emergence of emergency, powers granted to me under a local, declaration. Of state of emergency, they've. Been great partners, in this endeavor and they're not seeking any compensation, and. I also might want to thank the governor forgiven them I shot up but when I echo his words to the Somerville team for working around the clock when, we got the phone call from partners, a little over a week ago, my. Team immediately went to work we. Utilized our powers, we gained control of the site and we, went, through the approval process so we can get the system here which arrived last Sunday and as you can see there. And running and, we know the importance of this cleaning. Tens of thousands and sanitizing, tens of thousands of these n95. Respirator, masks per day help. Give the highest level of protection to, our health care workers and we need to protect them because they need to care for us as we. Become ill this. Is also a very good example how, government, local state the. Private sector and innovation, need to come together another. Great example of how we need to be nimble and move quickly into act and, I think we've all got that here, so. We're excited to have this system up and running and it's going to help so many people on our effort to take on this crisis, the. Further do I want, you to do is from Partners HealthCare Chris. Coburn. Thanks, mayor, Thank. You governor lieutenant, governor Pulido Oh mayor kurta Tony, federally. Really, LED represented. Today by Patrick, McMahon, my. Colleagues, dr. Paul Ben injure, Phil. Akari and others, who've really worked night and day to get the system in place, importantly. I'd like to recognize a Greg Duran who's the site head for Battelle I think we have about a dozen Patel people on site, Greg, is Massachusetts. Native he's from, the town of Hudson a family. Well-known in that part of the state so thank you Greg and thanks to the Patel leadership, for, backing us and making us the first site where, Battelle did not previously have a facility. That where, this this, capability, was, deployed. So. So, in terms of Partners HealthCare we're so pleased that we could play a role and you know speaking for our CEO, doctor and Caban ski you. Know bringing this innovative PPE. Decontamination. System, here, where it's so so. Needed, it. Speaks, right to the core of why, partners. Has. Embarked. In this area we. Currently require according. To dr. Benin juror now it's gone up to about 25,000. Masks a week we. Expect that it will go to 45, this. System, and other, tools will enable that growth, and enable the obviously. The protection. Of health to frontline, health. Care workers. You. Know innovation, is is whether. It's helping, patients protecting. Caregivers. Improving. Improving the delivery of care is that, the heart. Of art, our, system, and its mission, were. The largest academic research, center in America, we, have over 6,000, Harvard faculty who carry out about two billion dollars a year in research, another.
Priority For us the mirakuru Tony reference. This is collaboration. With the Commonwealth, with, the city of Somerville with, federal RealD and for, us so, wonderful, that we could be teamed. With Patel, two, storied organizations. Coming, together to. Help caregivers. Here in the Commonwealth, and all through. All. Through New England, folks. Like doctor villager and, on a personal note I just like to say for having. Spent a combined almost, 20 years at. Partners. HealthCare and, Patel. It's, really a thrill to see. This. Combination. Of, our two organizations in. This important way so, thank you so much. The. Questions, for us or these. Folks. So. Yes. Obviously. One of the challenges, with up to 100, hospitals, asset accessing, this system is is, all those logistics. The. Gretsch team our team again. Captained, by Phil. Akari who used to run supply chain for bus and scientific, have. Optimized. A system, to, to. Handle, the flow from our hospitals, and others around the state. Yeah. I can speak to it I and others might as well I would, say yes. It was approved, by the FDA with very explicit guidance. That. Guidance notes the system, and also the, antecedents. That led up to it this is an area of expertise, for Battelle that, goes back decades, they, run chem and biological, defense preparedness. For, a. Piece. Of the US federal government so without. Going into the specific details the. Emergency. Use authorization was, provided, by the, FDA after, a lot of back and forth, the. The I think the way it was explained to me the, maths that come out of here, had the same level of decontamination, as a mass that's purchased new from, a manufacturer. Yeah, I think I think it is approved to go to 20 times but L did a lot of preliminary, work I think that at. Least speaking for our hospital, system were confident, being at that level but, the plan from a logistical, standpoint is probably, less than five to ten maybe a more, precise. Number, but it's good to go to 20. So. This. Is the Battelle. System, similar, to one that was deployed. At. The other sites in the US the three original sites, and in, Ohio. State, of New York and state of Washington, you, have four trailers. That have, exactly if, you can see the numbers one, through four and. Gregg, has named them in honor of sports. Teams given his local, roots here. Each. Of these have, exactly the, same role, and, so, as they ramp, up these will be running concurrently and, around, the clock the Patel team is staff to operate these 24/7. So, essentially. Mats, come in there's some sorting, they go on racks the, racks go into these units, the. The. Treatment. Takes place over a period of about four hours.
Than. The masks are repackaged. For shipping, back to this site of, containment. Of site. Of origin I'm sorry. Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank. Thank you for that question, so, two Sundays, ago we. Heard we. Were on a conference call early. In the morning we heard that Patel had this system we reached out to Patel two, days later we had a deal the deal was based on us. Committing. To use the system, there was no exchange. Of money in any kind and. Now that the federal government is is. Covering. The class we, don't expect any any. Exchange. From us or any of the other hospitals. I the. Mayor can speak or the governor on that front. But, the. Cost there was cost in getting, the, site prep having. The contractors, here and, a very close, linkage. With federal real. On. The city I can tell you we know there's no money from the city other than staff time and, the. Administration, the governor can the administration can speak to code. Related, 19 expenses, being reimbursed to cities and towns so and. As I mentioned earlier federal realty investment trusts is currently not seeking any compensation. For. The utilization of this building I, mean. Keep in mind the way. This the, federal government's, grant isn't gonna last forever but it's gonna last for a while and that's a good thing but. Eventually the. Way this works is you basically pay to, have your gear. Decontaminated. The, price you pay to have your gear decontaminated. In most, cases is gonna be less than it would cost you to actually go buy new gear so for, all intents and purposes it's, an expense, that would be incurred by healthcare providers anyway, I do, want to give dr. venture who's sort. Of a leading authority on affect infectious, disease an opportunity. To speak about the question, that was. Asked about the. Validity of the process, and in. The decontamination system, itself because I think that's important, for people to hear. Okay, Thank You governor I would like to also add my thoughts and thanks to, the governor to, lieutenant governor mayor, Tony, Patel. And Federal Realty this. Really is an extraordinary opportunity, to. Continue. To protect our health care workforce, we. Have nurses. Respiratory, therapists, physicians, so many clinical. Staff who are caring for patients and for. So many weeks, and now months you heard me, say that, we cannot buy enough, of the personal protective equipment that we would like it's just not there for purchase and. So really. Even beyond cost is just access to, the to the n95 s and to, have an, opportunity to, provide. More, and 95s, to our health care workforce is absolutely, essential the. Technologies I understand was actually originally. Tested, and approved in. In. Terms of kill rates in 2015. So, this isn't something that was just put together within, the last year or two it's been something studied previously and. Achieves what we call a six log kill, rate which. Is sufficient. To call it absolutely. Safe from a bacterial, and a viral perspective, and, this has been tested and so this, thankfully, is technology that that is relatively. More, time-tested over over several years and, then we're very grateful for the FDA's emergency, use authorization that, permits that to, be is but. Again in just in terms of expanding, the available, pool not, just within partners healthcare but for all the hospitals of the Commonwealth that are reaching out to be part of this process that this really represents an opportunity to have more PPE for the frontline health care workers who need it in, ways we just cannot purchase on the market almost irrespective. Of Christ. I would, not be the right person to comment on the technical aspects of that I mean Chris are we good or do we want a friend can I ask you - no sorry, I can't, I. Connect. You with someone to fall for Chris I'm sorry.
There. Are people better, equipped to answer that question here if you want to go into more detail after but at, least as I understand, it the. System is is. Sealed. Obviously. In its, you. Know conduct, of its work, there's. The. Flow. Of the. Outside. From the units, its, its. Pressure. Of going both ways I, don't know, we can we, can talk to you afterwards if you want. We, just add that in addition our staff, our team of inspectional, services public health inspectors, and border health have inspected, the site played a role in matrons. Staged in this area we spent, a certain and, again confirmed, through no through. No dangers, in terms of what's being emitted from him. Saiga. They. Say the federal government, enters. They, had me reach out to me today they said they're not. What. Are you hearing about situations, like these anything, you're going to do. Was, it the town of Milford Oh Milford Hospital. Okay. I'm. Not familiar with this one I'll follow up on it obviously. There. Are many folks in the public sector who over, the course of the past several. Weeks. Have. Have. Had orders, disappear. So we'll. Follow up with Milford and see what the story is there but. Look. I talked I talked to governor's, all. The time and. Well. I've had my own experience with respect to this which I've spoken of there, plenty of other governors who had similar experiences. But we'll follow up with Milford. Like. I said I'll talk to him about it too we can do to help him. The, answer. Is, yes in both cases, the. DCU has started accepting patients I think they started accepting patients on Thursday right and. BCC. Started, accepting patients last night. Well. At this point they're pretty small the. Newton pavilions, also started to accept patients, I think Newton, is 22. I think, the BCC, at this point as a handful, and I think the number of Wooster is less than 10 isn't it. Cape Cod is gonna be open probably, Monday. This. Is the beginning folks we've said this before this is the beginning the reason for creating this capacity. Which. Has been an enormous amount of work by, a lot of people, is. To recognize, and understand, that we. Need a lot of empty staffed, capacity. To, be available, to deal with what, we believe will be a very difficult next, two or three weeks and, this, is what we've been planning, for for the past several weeks. Well. There's a first. Of all there's a growing. Consensus. About. About. This particular virus, that there is a significant. A. Minority. Population but a significant. Portion of the population who, are not going to show symptoms, they, will be in fact that they are carriers, but, they're not going to show symptoms now. That's an almost impossible number, to figure out until you get testing, in some, part of the world to a level way beyond where it is now, but. The estimates, range anywhere, from twenty to forty, percent depending, upon who you talk to.
Part. Of the reason, we. Decided, to, put the advisory, out on. Masks. Or, face coverings, if you can't be. In. A situation, or a circumstance, where you can distance, appropriately. From other people, it's. Because of this issue of people who may. Be in fact infected. But have no idea. This, goes both ways the, point behind the face covering, is not just about protecting yourself, from somebody else it's, also about protecting somebody, else from you if you happen to be one of those people who, doesn't know you've been infected because you aren't showing any symptoms now. It's going to take a while for everybody, to ultimately, figure out because again we're dealing with a new virus. And unprecedented. Circumstance. Here what, the actual, size, of the. Infected. But not symptomatic, population. Is but. There's no question at this point based on what a lot of the experts are saying they think it's a much bigger number than was, originally anticipated. So part, of the issue here about wanting. People to wear face, coverings, or masks, if they go to, a supermarket, or, a pharmacy. Or some other place where they can't be sure about. Their ability, to distance, is, to not just protect themselves, from others but to protect others, from them same. Goes with respect, to the. Guidance we put out earlier this week about limiting, the number of people who could be in a supermarket, at. Any given time or a grocery store to, 40%, of the stated total. Occupancy, of the site, once again designed, to, create distance. Physical. Distance, between people, who are in there shopping and the people who are actually serving them, and. The decision, we made to. Make the. To. Make the sites the testing sites the drive-through sites at Gillette in, Foxborough, and the, biggie in West Springfield was. Specifically, designed. Originally. For first responders emergency. Responders, but. We expanded, it based on some of the data and some of the discussions, that we've had with. Folks in public health about, the fact that grocery workers are exposed, all day long to, a lot of people who, may not be symptomatic. But. May in fact, be. Carriers, and that's, why that face covering, is, such a big and important issue here going forward. So. I, think. People know that we are original, requests which we we, believe was approved at one point was, for a thousand, ventilators. Since. That time we've. Received, two, hundred ventilators, and there are two hundred more that are coming. I, mean, we're. Pretty well confirmed I mean secretary, slaughters talks a lot about the fact that lands it's not real but, I do believe the two hundred additional, ventilators. Are coming, the, message we got from the feds was that we would be receiving. Ventilators. On an incremental basis I mean so far they're living up to that you know they gave us a hundred they gave us another hundred they've, committed another 200, we're obviously going, to continue to pursue the. Full thousand, that we believe we need we're also pursuing. A, variety, of private. Sector channels, that. I believe remain promising. As well, but. As dr. Biddinger said the. Whole process around, around. Gear however you want to define it is one. That we are working all, the time every, day we're still working we're. Still working channels on additional, 95, masks, and 95, masks we think this is a terrific. Tool. To help us create. A much longer, shelf life and useful, life for a 95, mess but we're looking for more of those we're, also pursuing.
Gowns, And poppers. And, and. A lot of the other gear that the. People on the front lines are going to need then, we're gonna continue to do that. So, we've tried to be. We've. Tried to be pretty clear, in both our messaging, our guidance our advisories, and our orders about. How. Important, it is for people. To, maintain social, distancing, and to, use good hygiene, and to take these issues seriously and. To, understand, and appreciate the fact especially with, some of this new knowledge coming out that implies. Significant. Portions, of the, population, can in fact be in fact it can in fact be carriers and show no symptoms how. Important, it is for people, to use, the face coverings, at the socially, distance, and to use good hygiene, I. Think. In many ways, based. On what. We have seen just. Generally, out there people. Have been pretty good about that. But. When we see things that concern us we act on it when we saw a lot of activity, at the beach last, weekend, which was a pretty nice weekend. We. Banned parking at the beaches and. We expected, and we did see a number of. Waterfront. Communities, follow our lead on that one this. Weekend, we are shutting down a number of our park ways something we did in conjunction with our colleagues. In those communities, to, make more space available, for people to walk and to walk with distance. If they need to go out but, the overarching, message all, along and it's been one that the mayor and his colleagues, and municipal, government, have shared time, and time again and, that the lieutenant governor and I have discussed, over and over with, our colleagues, in government and our colleagues, and. The health care community is, there's. A reason, why we've taken these, draconian, measures, with, respect to essential, businesses, there, are reasons why we've. Taken these, measures, with respect, to stay at home and why, we've been so aggressive about, encouraging, people to, not go out unless you have to go out. I mean we all get the fact that the economic impact, of. These, decisions, is, profound. And that's playing out the data. But. When you're dealing with something that's as contagious, as this particular virus, and is. As deadly for certain populations, as this, particular virus you, have got to understand, and recognize, the role you can play in, protecting, not just yourself but the other people you come in contact with, and and. I said the first time we, limited, gatherings, and basically, shut down. Services. And houses of worship how. Brutal, I knew that would be for many of my friends and. The people I know, for. Whom their faith is a core, part of what they're about and those opportunities, to practice. Shoulder-to-shoulder. With. Their with. Their friends, and their neighbors and their communities.
Matters, To them but. We. Just can't be doing that stuff now and we especially can't, be doing that stuff as. We head into this very difficult month. Of April which is based on all the modeling that's been done probably, going to be the. Toughest month for, the people of Massachusetts and. And one of the things I said yesterday. If. In this Holy Week. People, need to pray I would urge them to pray for, a lot of the folks who are going to be taking care of, those. Who get sick praying, for those who do get sick and praying for their families. This. Is this, is going to be a rough time and I get the fact that it's a nice day. But. People really need to accept, the fact that. That. This virus is, is. Insidious, in some cases is invisible and. And. It will prey on people if you give it the opportunity the, best way you can kill it is to not give it to somebody else and not get it yourself and, that means staying. Away, from people for the most part except. Those you may share a house with or, an apartment. And really, limiting, your outdoor activities to, those essential, activities, we've discussed before and if, you can wear a face covering, or a mask when you can't social. This socially, distance, please. Do because, it will help not just you but it will also help other people as well.
2020-04-12 14:11
