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Governor s decision on mass vaccinations draws fire from local communities
Effective Monday, March 1, local communities will no longer be administering first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.
That decision from Gov. Charlie Baker last week has drawn heat from officials in Dedham, Norwood and Westwood.
Westwood Fire Chief John Deckers, who helped organize the town s vaccination efforts, said that the town s leadership is working on a formal response to the governor in hopes of highlighting the negative impact that his decision has made on the residents of Westwood. The Norfolk County fire chiefs have already gone on record that we do not support this decision, and I know that the governing boards of the Councils on Aging have also sent along letters.
FAIRHAVEN Fairhaven and Acushnet officials say they were ready to distribute the vaccine, but the state pulled the rug from under them by diverting supplies to the mass vaccination sites.
“The state was pushing us smaller municipalities into emergency planning. We were ready to go and were confident we wouldn’t disappoint the community. Then the state made this decision and pulled the rug from under us,” said Kevin Gallagher, fire chief for Acushnet Fire Department. Gov. Charlie Baker made the decision earlier this month to stop distributing vaccines for COVID-19 to local municipal clinics in order to supply mega sites run by the state.
The failure of the state’s vaccine appointment website yesterday brought renewed criticism of Massachusetts’ vaccine rollout. Even Gov. Charlie Baker told “Boston Public Radio,” “My hair’s on fire about the whole thing. I can’t even begin to tell you how pissed off I am,” when asked about the website debacle just after noon. He later […]