Watch live: CDC director joins Charlie Baker at Boston vaccination site
After warning about a potential "fourth" COVID-19 wave, Dr. Rochelle Walensky is scheduled to appear alongside Baker and other Massachusetts officials following a tour of the FEMA-sponsored Hynes Convention Center vaccination site.
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A day after raising alarms about a potential “fourth” COVID-19 wave in the United States, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is appearing in Boston to tour the city’s expanding vaccination site at the Hynes Convention Center.
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky is scheduled to join Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, Sen. Ed Markey, Rep. Stephen Lynch, and other state and federal officials Tuesday afternoon at the Back Bay vaccination site, which is expanding to 7,000 appointments a day this week with support from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The group is scheduled to hold a press conference following a 1 p.m. tour.
The tour comes after Walensky, the former chief of infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital, said Monday that she was “scared” about the recent uptick in COVID-19 cases across the country, including in Massachusetts, even as the rollout of vaccines begins to accelerate.
However, public health experts say the vaccine rollout is a race against time, as more contagious variants of COVID-19 continue to spread. Walensky warned that the rise in cases in the United States looked “similar” to what countries in Europe experienced in recent weeks, and she urged both elected officials and residents against letting their guard down.
“We are not powerless; we can change this trajectory of the pandemic,” Walensky said Monday. “But it will take all of us, recommitting to following the public health prevention strategies consistently, while we work to get the American public vaccinated.”
While a number of states have completely repealed face covering rules and other COVID-19 restrictions, Baker has defended his administration’s “incremental” reopening process. Last week, Massachusetts entered the first step of Phase 4 of the reopening plan, allowing stadiums like TD Garden and Fenway Park to reopen with a 12 percent capacity limit and other social distancing and face covering requirements.
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