In North County, the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, along with the Northern Berkshire Community Coalition and Williams College, will host the annual Community Day of Service on Jan. 18 from 9 am to 1 pm. Activities will be socially distanced or virtual and include a canned food drive, mittens/socks/hats drive, a letter drive and card-making. Those interested in participating or volunteering can call the Northern Berkshire Community Coalition at 413-663-7588 or send an email to csacherski@nbccoalition.org. More information can be found at the Coalition s Facebook page, Facebook.com/nbccoalition.
In Pittsfield, Berkshire Community College (BCC) plans to hold its annual Martin Luther King Jr. National Day of Service event completely virtually on Jan. 18.
Berkshire Community College s annual Martin Luther King Jr. National Day of Service event will take place via Zoom on Monday, Jan. 18. The event is co-sponsored by the Berkshire Branch of the NAACP.
The event begins at 9 a.m. with a keynote speech by Chris Himes, author and educator working with Miss Hall s School. Afterward, participants will have an opportunity to connect and share with fellow community members through Zoom breakout rooms.
Service projects include crafting Valentine s Day cards and notes of appreciation for residents of Berkshire Healthcare Systems nursing homes; writing letters of gratitude to deployed soldiers; or donating new face masks, new men s and women s underwear, small hand sanitizer, disposable menstrual products, individual snacks, and K-cups (coffee) for the reopened homeless shelter.
A sore arm, identical to the aftereffect of a typical flu shot.
Taylor Hoffstedt, a certified nursing assistant, was overwhelmed with emotion before her first dose last month, even tearing up. Physically, though, she was almost entirely unaffected.
âI didnât have any side effects,â she said. âOther than a slightly sore arm.â
As county health care workers receive their second dose or draw closer to the scheduled date for it, many told The Eagle they have experienced few or none of the vaccineâs more common side effects.
Among more than 2,000 employees vaccinated at Berkshire Health Systems, the vast majority reported no side effects at all, according to spokesperson Michael Leary.
LENOX â A botched, delayed rollout of the COVID-19 vaccination program by the federal government â possibly a temporary setback â and continued resistance by a significant minority of Americans send up warning flares for our hospitality-tourism-arts economy in 2021.
The three-month shutdown of the high-end Canyon Ranch Lenox resort announced this past week, with an undisclosed number of employee furloughs, is discouraging, yet not surprising. The stateâs travel order bars visitors (unless theyâre from Hawaii) from overnight stays unless they can produce a negative test result from the three days before their arrival. Lacking that, they must quarantine for 10 days.
What is startling is a note from Eagle reporter Francesca Paris this past week that about 40 percent of Berkshire Healthcare Systems employees at their nursing care facilities have expressed unwillingness to take the vaccine, at least for now.
With this daily feature, The Eagle runs down breaking local developments in the coronavirus crisis.
BY THE NUMBERS: One new COVID-19 death in Berkshire County brought the total to 132, with the confirmed case count up 54, to 2,787, the state Department of Public Health said.
The DPH said 58 new deaths were reported in Massachusetts over the period, pushing the statewide total to 11,958. Deaths including those listed as probably caused by COVID-19 are 12,218. Confirmed cases rose 3,659, to 346,423. According to data provided by Johns Hopkins University, at least 229,910 people in Massachusetts with COVID-19 have recovered.
NUMBER OF ACTIVE CASES: 78,215 statewide.
POSITIVITY RATE RISING: The DPH report shows an upward trend in positivity rates of molecular COVID-19 tests in Massachusetts.