Each day, more and more Wareham residents find themselves on the receiving end of an unfortunate phone call from a family member, employer, friend or public health official. The caller says a variation of: “I’m sorry to tell you this, but you’ve been identified as someone who has had recent contact with an individual who has tested positive for covid-19.”
What comes next? Wareham Week compiled guidance from public health officials to help answer that question.
Proper quarantine at home
As a baseline, if you’ve been exposed to someone who has tested positive for covid-19, your quarantine should begin immediately, according to Board of Health chairman Dr. Amy Wiegandt.
We’ve been waiting a long time for this, he said. It’s been quite a long run trying to fight this battle, this pandemic. Really grateful to the researchers and scientists because we would not have the vaccine today if it wasn t for them.
Barros thanked his team, as they have been tirelessly working through COVID-19 day after day since February. He said that although they are emotionally and physically drained, they didn t stop, they just kept going. I think we all need to come together and we can combat this, he said. Getting this today is hope for a brighter future.
More than 100 doses of the Pfizer covid-19 vaccine arrived at Tobey Hospital on Wednesday, Dec. 16.
Just after noon, Jeff McCarthy a pharmacy manager moonlighting as a courier for the day drove doses of the vaccine and the supplies needed to vaccinate people to Wareham from Southcoast Health’s Charlton Memorial Hospital in Fall River.
Nearly 2,000 doses of the vaccine were delivered to the Charlton Hospital yesterday, on Tuesday, Dec. 15. Southcoast began distributing doses of the vaccine to Tobey Hospital and St. Luke’s Hospital in New Bedford on Wednesday.
McCarthy said Southcoast had more doses to send over once all of Tobey Hospital’s initial doses were used but planned to send over small shipments because the deep freezer was at another location.