Cape and Islands State Senator Julian Cyr.
HYANNIS – The Cape Cod COVID Response Task Force discussed plans Thursday to get all educators in the region vaccinated against COVID-19 amid growing concern over the recently identified Brazilian coronavirus variant in Barnstable County.
Department of Human Services Deputy Director Vaira Harik said that the region is seeing an increase in new daily cases of COVID-19, though fatalities and hospitalizations are on the decline.
She urged residents to maintain mitigation efforts such as masking and physically distancing in order to contain the virus, even as more and more people get vaccinated.
Task force member and Cape and Islands State Senator Julian Cyr (D-Truro) also stressed the importance of mitigation efforts given the recent confirmation of the Brazilian variant of the coronavirus in the county, which he said may be capable of re-infecting individuals who have already experienced COVID-19.
“This is the first confirmed variant, P1, that has been detected here. It likely indicates a larger spread of P1 in Barnstable County and across the Commonwealth,” said Cyr.
Cyr said that the Cape Cod Regional Vaccine Consortium—a collaboration between local healthcare providers, health departments, municipalities and the county—has been successful in its efforts to increase vaccination rates across the region.
He said that the county now leads the state in percentage of residents vaccinated, an accomplishment he attributes to the work of the consortium as well as efforts by the Cape’s councils on aging, police and fire departments and other town organizations.
“In the percentage of residents [vaccinated], we should be leading in that percentage because of how many older adults we have. Thirty percent of the population is over 65 in Barnstable County,” said Cyr.
The supply of doses that the county receives from the state government weekly has increased threefold, said Cyr, expanding supply to 3,500 doses a week from 1,170.
“That means we’ll be increasing our number of clinics. We’ll start opening more things up, and there will be more slots available for people to get vaccinated. Additionally, we are going to be doing some teacher clinics as well,” said county Department of Health and Environment Director O’Brien.
President and CEO of Cape Cod Healthcare Michael Lauf said that work continues to get educators vaccinated as soon as possible, including the healthcare provider and consortium reaching out to school districts to generate a list of teachers who have not yet been vaccinated.
With this list, Lauf said that Cape Cod Healthcare will host a vaccination clinic at the Cape Cod Community College specifically for educators on Saturday, March 20.
“The dedicated teachers clinic can hold up to 750 scheduled appointments for this Saturday,” said Lauf.
“270 teachers have already been registered and we hope to grow that to over 700 depending on who still needs appointments.”
Additionally, the consortium and county are planning other clinics for March 20, March 27 and April 3 to vaccinate K-12 teachers.
According to Cyr, there are about 6,000 K-12 educators and support staff across the region and most have already received a vaccine from a pharmacy or elsewhere, but the clinics will work to provide doses for any remaining educators who want one.
Cyr also said that the consortium will also work to vaccinate hospitality, food services, grocery workers and other residents across Cape as the state’s vaccination efforts ramp up in April.
About Grady Culhane
