4/21/2020 Press Conference on COVID-19 Updates

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On April 21st, Governor Baker gave a press conference to provide a COVID-19 update on Testing, Hospitals, School Closures, Childcare, Launch of State’s Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program, MA Stem Council, Student Loans, Mobil-testing, and Public data.

Here is the summary.

Testing

  • Yesterday, MA conducted 7,157 new tests which brings the total to 169,000.

Hospitals

  • As of the end of the day yesterday, there were approximately 18,100 beds available statewide. 

  • Approximately, 3,800 are occupied by patients with COVID-19. This leaves about 10,300 beds (about 58% of beds overall) remaining un-occupied and available for patients. 

    • The unoccupied beds include 6,800 acute care beds, about 2,600 ICU beds, and 900 beds in field medical hospitals. 

  • Please remember that other health concerns are still important during this time. Please utilize Buoy as it is a COVID-19 resource tool for MA residents. 

    • Buoy is free for MA residents, will support those who are worried about their symptoms, and will connect them to the appropriate healthcare resource. 

    • Not to be used in place of emergency medical care.

Schools

  • All public and private schools will remain closed through the end of the school year. This does not apply to residential special education schools. 

  • Remote learning will continue in all districts.

Childcare

  • MA is extending the previous executive order closing all non-emergency childcare programs until June 29th, 2020. 

  • Emergency childcare programs will continue operating and serve healthcare workers, first responders, and other essential personnel who must continue to work. 

  • The Department of Early Education and Care is developing a partnership with Care.com to help unemployed childcare workers provide in-home care for essential workers and to support families with children who have special needs. 

  • The Department of Early Education and Care is also launching a partnership with WGBH to provide resources and activities for parents to utilize with their children. 

Launch of State’s Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program

  • This program was created under the Federal CARES Act and launched yesterday. 

    • This creates an unemployment benefit for people out of work due to COVID-19 who do not qualify for traditional unemployment insurance. 

  • Claimants who qualify will receive weekly benefits that include the additional $600 that all claimants are now receiving. 

  • This new program has been able to process 50,000 claims in the first day. 

  • Please go online to mass.gov/pua and apply if you do not qualify for traditional unemployment insurance. 

MA Stem Council

  • The Council has compiled various levels of resources for remote stem education learning. 

    • These resources are for all students across all levels and different abilities. 

    • Examples include virtual field trips to the National Science Foundation, Ted Talks for Kids, and MIT Stem Videos. 

  • This information is accessible through DESI’s COVID-19 website at www.doe.mass.edu/covid19/stem. 

Student Loans

  • MA Department of Higher Education is deferring scheduled repayments for its non-interest loan program for a period of 4 months. 

    • Students that participate in the Departments no-interest loan program, will not receive a bill until the middle of July 2020, with the next payment due in August. 

  • The Office of Student Financial Assistance is suspending penalties for student borrowers who are not in good standing with repayment. 

Mobile-Testing

  • The program tests both symptomatic and asymptomatic residents and staff at nursing homes, rest homes, assisted living residencies, and Executive Office of Health and Human Services group homes, hospitals, and developmental disability centers. 

  • MA has paused on sending test-kits to nursing homes as recently, 14,000 test kits were sent out and only 4,000 of them were returned. 

    • They are currently working to figure out what the logistical issues are and will then continue to send out test kits. 

  • To date, the on-site testing program has visited 311 long term care facilities to conduct more than 8,800 tests.

  • On the Health and Human Services side, there have been tests conducted at 206 facilities and have completed 3,700 tests. 

Public Data

  • Yesterday, MA released a re-formatted and detailed COVID-19 data report that included trend data in a variety of areas. This is what it includes: 

    • The Daily Dashboard is now 23 pages in length and includes information on case rates, testing, and breakdowns in age, sex, race, ethnicity, and geography of confirmed cases as well as a similar breakdown in death data. 

    • Specific information on COVID-19 hospital census information and data on PPE distribution by recipient type and geography.

    • List of long term care facilities along with the percentage range of the number of positive cases in each facility. 

  • Please find this data report on the state’s website at: mass.gov/covid19