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Directing traffic on a cold and gray day during a recent vaccination clinic in Orleans, retired physical therapist Robin McIntyre, of Bourne, said she felt an obligation to volunteer to help during the pandemic.
“This is bigger than just little Cape Cod, for sure, said McIntyre, whose neon vest with the initials MRC identified her as a volunteer for the Cape Cod Medical Reserve Corps. This is a huge thing for our world. It’s important to be doing this.”
McIntyre is one of a small army of volunteers, mostly retirees, standing between Cape Codders and COVID-19.
Local officials hope to expand their already growing ranks as vaccination efforts ramp up on Cape Cod.
Colin A. Young
The first day that it was up and running, a hotline that offers to answer COVID-19 testing and vaccination questions for Cape Cod residents was bombarded with calls, 990 of them in the first eight and a half hours, officials said.
Staffed by 15 volunteers from the county s Cape Cod Medical Reserve Corps, the hotline aims to smooth over some of the confusion and frustration around the state s rollout of the vaccine by fielding questions about testing and vaccination sites, vaccine eligibility and more at 774-330-3001.
Public dissatisfaction with the pace of the vaccine rollout has been a persistent theme during the weekly updates provided from the Cape Cod COVID-19 Response Task Force and remained so Thursday. As he s done for about a month now, Sen. Julian Cyr of Truro urged people to be patient and defended the Baker administration s phased approach to the rollout. He also placed blame for the sputtering process on the Trump administration.
The state Department of Public Health said in its Friday daily report that there are 5,074 newly confirmed cases of coronavirus in Massachusetts, including 129 on the Cape and Islands.
Also on Friday, the Barnstable County Department of Health and Environment announced it will launch a regionwide helpline phone number to answer COVID-related questions at 8 a.m., Tuesday. Ten Cape Cod Medical Reserve Corps volunteers have been trained to answer questions about COVID-19, such as how to get a COVID-19 test or how to help someone navigate the three-phased approach to vaccination, county officials said in a press release.
Barnstable County Communications Manager Sonja Sheasley said county staff is being inundated with questions, especially from residents who are confused about when and how they can get a vaccine.