FALL RIVER Bristol Community College is about to become a regional COVID-19 vaccination site.
Mayor Paul Coogan made the announcement Thursday afternoon during an outdoor press conference on the main BCC campus.
He said the vaccination site will be available to anyone living in the state.
The new regional vaccination site could be up and running by as soon as next week, according to Tess Curran, the city’s Health and Human Services Director.
Curran will oversee the vaccination clinic, which will be the second inoculation site on the campus.
The first Bristol vaccination site, which also has been supervised by Curran, has been providing Moderna vaccine shots for the past week and a half to first responders including police officers, firefighters, fire department EMTs and BCC campus police.
FALL RIVER It was a jab well done.
Fall River first responders who got the first of two Moderna coronavirus vaccines on Monday said they don’t regret rolling up their sleeves.
“It’s just like a normal needle from any health care professional,” said police media spokesman Lt. Jay Huard, moments after he had taken a shot to his left arm.
Huard was one of 40 city police officers scheduled Monday to receive the vaccine shot in a rear section of the HealthFirst Family Care Center building on Quarry Street.
The nonprofit had offered to inoculate the officers at the request of the city’s health department and its director Tess Curran, according to HealthFirst LPN Supervisor Michelle Peixoto.
FALL RIVER Free COVID-19 testing in Fall River is not going away.
That’s according to Mayor Paul Coogan, who said Thursday that the city will continue to be included in the statewide Stop the Spread initiative that began last July.
The mayor said he’d been informed by his health department director Tess Curran that a “professional company” will assume the responsibility of collecting test samples after Jan. 15.
That date marks the contractual expiration of a months-long agreement between the state and Seven Hills Foundation and Stanley Street Treatment and Resources, or SSTAR.
Both nonprofit businesses have been offering free testing, sometimes at various sites, that haven’t required prior appointments.