001all right all right so we're live so today we're talking strictly about vaccinations and how that applies to us here in arps and and i think um do you mind giving like kind of a rundown as to where we are as far as the community with the uh the vaccinations so far with our clinics sure so um can everybody is it working oh good i am muted that's the good first step okay so right now in terms of the community we have started phase two and we are in the first step of phase two which is those 75 and older governor baker did announce that at mass effect the four mass vaccination sites around the state that caregivers accompanying an elder over 75 to their appointment could be vaccinated as well that was after they
002identified that um there was a barrier to elders feeling like like they could participate in those mass vaccination sites without someone obviously accompanying them for safety and also because it can be very disorienting to be in such a big space uh as of right now in terms of our amherst site locally we've done over on monday evening it was over 20 2500 vaccines so i think we're probably about 2 800 right now so by the end of february we will have done more than 3 500 if we're able to still get all those doses from the state we now have a full accompaniment of volunteers uh we're on boarding staff to help support this effort and um we're just really excited to get it up and running and chug chug chug along so we can
003get as soon as we can to the next steps of the continued phases there does continue to be a shortage of vaccine to the state of massachusetts which is uh unfortunately a barrier to us being able to move quickly to the next steps but i know we're all working our hardest to get there in terms of locally we have two sites we have our amherst regional high school site and then our smaller site here at the bang center the amherst regional site we do it in the in the mornings and are out by afternoon so that way athletics can still occur and we can get those air changes in the gym so that it's safe for our students and our coaches and other staff um after our clinics end and then here at the bing
004center uh unfortunately we're not able to have as robust clinics here because of obviously our size constraints but we are still having those smaller clinics too as well um a question about that do you um and you have a good handle on the number of vaccines that have been distributed do we know about what percent of the way through people estimate to be over 70 we're through yeah what i heard yesterday which this has not been seen in a data point but it's from a reliable source is that they believe about 50 of those 75 and older have been vaccinated throughout the state as a as of this time excellent and is there there's a is there a marker of percentage that we're going for before we open to the next i would imagine so
005but that's above my pay grade unfortunately and they're not sharing that but i think it's a question that a lot of us are thinking about okay yeah thank you yeah for sure and thank you so much for all of your hard work that has gone into arranging clinics and arranging volunteers and dealing with the uncertainty of numbers of vaccines that you're going to have from day to day and week to week and really adjusting and being able to implement new plans on the fly we are so grateful for your work in the county um in in the community that you've been able to give to us for for helping us get people vaccinated here in western mass yeah it's it's only i mean i'm a small piece of it um but really it's the entire
006team um not just the town of amherst but really working with the school ben i know i've worked with you and rupert and and don the amazing head custodian at the high school and the other great team players there like it's really everybody coming together and and that's what i really love about these this kind of activity is is like you said the volunteers it it's engaging our whole community in this effort and us coming together at this time to not just i i think it's that next wave of covid response um that's really touching to all of us uh to kind of really directly affect others in our community thanks emma i've got a question it was just announced this afternoon that their state is redirecting doses to some of the super vaccine centers
007in the eastern part of the state state redirecting from western mass and i'm just wondering if you know how many like the amount that they're redirecting and how that's going to affect us yeah we're not sure we haven't gotten confirmation of that that's certainly a question that we're all thinking about um i know that senator comerford and representative dome have been advocating for us fiercely out here and our unique needs being in western mass um that individuals going to a mass vaccination site can can mean a two-hour round-trip drive for a lot of our community members which is certainly a barrier so i don't have the answer to that um i'm as we're on this meeting i'm hearing emails ping into my email box so that could be it but as soon as we know
008i'm sure we'll communicate that with everybody and is the state still receiving um eighty-six thousand dollars i heard anywhere from about eighty to a hundred thousand okay um i think krista do you have anything else about number of doses um just curious about um how how it works if if the state is i need time to formulate that one before it comes out properly okay um the end of a very long day and a very long week long week um does the state still have in um the cold storage oh i don't know the answer to that but there are some that that are being that are being stored currently correct they're not that are not uh have not been distributed or have not been earmarked for distribution i i would imagine so but i
009don't have the answer to that i know the last time i had heard um all all of their distribution except for five percent this was two weeks ago had gone out to the end points but that certainly that number certainly could be updated by now you know i had a question about something i learned about today that i personally am excited about but um so so today i was in for well actually yesterday i was informed but i got confirmation today that that um veterans working in education will be getting kind of fast track to the ex like next week fast-tracked into the the vaccination program i was wondering if you had any information about water i i don't i think that's being coordinated on a federal level through the va program um in terms
010of the state involvement i'm not sure we're a conduit to that but i believe that's a va initiative yeah just in case there's any educators paras food service workers i think i took care of our department today that are veterans make sure you contact uh i guess debbie westmoreland is the one point of contact for us for now so and then the uh i guess the pressing question i have which i i'm not sure if it's an easy answer or if it's in the ballpark this is the most common question i get is is when are we anticipated to be up at bat basically yeah um they have not given us a clear picture it all depends on vaccine availability and supply coming down to us for when we're able to move on to the
011next step um i do know that i i heard that the town council supports teachers moving up which is terrific and i love that local advocacy for our teachers unfortunately our our site on the local level we're not going to be able to be out of step out of sync with the state distribution until we're given permission um but as soon as that happens i know we really look forward to being able to vaccinate all of our teachers and staff as soon as we can i'm gonna follow oh i'm sorry um i just wanted to make sure that the community understands that it's not a decision that you make whether or not to change um the phases and the steps it's um it's you're told by the state and is it um my understanding is
012that the state can um revoke your ability to distribute vaccines if you don't follow the phases correctly is that absolutely and and that has happened to other sites that have decided to go out of step um and and i really want to be able to assure our our community that we're going to be able to be a site for a long time and a continuous site right now and then the the the other question i had this that's kind of pressing we've kind of discussed this a little bit in our our private meetings at this jail embassy is the the start to finish so there's been a lot of misconceptions i think you can you can uh educate me as to whether or not they're misconceptions but start to finish from first shot to last
013shot about how long is that process yeah so it depends on what kind of vaccine you get so for the pfizer mrna vaccine it's 28 uh sorry it's 21 days see even i screw it up between those two vaccine dose appointments with moderna they're 28 days apart certainly if we move to the johnson and johnson or a different vaccine in the future those are just one dose to be able to get your vaccine but so far the only ones that are approved by the fda under the emergency youth authorization are the pfizer and the moderna and then what they are saying in terms of of immunity is um that it takes a minimum of around two weeks after you get that second dose what we call the boost um for you to be able to
014have a good antibody response to have protection and i know that the cdc i forget if it was yesterday all the days are blending together but maybe it was two days ago is co coming out and supporting new language around guidelines regarding exposure for those that have completed their two-dose regimen of the vaccine where quarantine white might not have to be indicated with that being said there are parameters to that it would have to be equal to or more than two weeks after receiving the second dose of the vaccine but still within three months of completing that vaccine so it's not a forever thing and also certainly if someone was to develop symptoms of covid they would have to be tested and go into quarantine for that that's what that time window is really interesting
015isn't it yeah because there's still so many unknowns i think right that's what's really interesting about right now um is that we're learning new things every day and certainly as uh covid is a rna virus they tend to uh create variants very quickly similar to the flu right and all our strains for the flu so we learn more every day with this for sure excellent um i'm going to draw you back to um a question about numbers and timelines and people and um so after this people who are 75 and older are completed the next group is 65 to 75. do we have an indication in the state based on demographics of how big that group might be compared to the 75 plus group yeah i have not heard that number but it's those 65
016and over and with the two plus comorbidities that people have to attest to we don't need to see any medical records but that would be if someone identifies as having hypertension and diabetes or like pneumonia or asthma or obesity those would all be indicate the two plus comorbidities that people could attest to but in terms of population size i'm i'm not sure about those numbers but i i know that from what i've heard from the vaccine group that really has been going through these groups in terms of the phased rollout that that was considered and this goes to your question or to what you were saying earlier about quarantine if vaccinated so i understand there's an open question right now about whether or not people can transmit after vaccination it looks like this advice from
017the cdc to not quarantine once vaccinated for that two week to three month window it looks like they're looking toward finding an answer to that question is that is that a correct am i making that connection correctly in my brain right now that's that's how i process that as well but i know we're all still looking forward to clear language um on a state meeting that i was on this this morning while massachusetts has not officially adopted those guidelines yet um state epidemiology it's hopeful that massachusetts will adopt those on a local level so far they have not a state level they haven't found an indicator why why it would not be um but we're just waiting for that official approval okay um i guess another question about our local vaccination site so we're um
018happy that the high school is being used for this we're curious if you can talk a little for the public who might not know what's going on how does this work how can a person get an appointment um what kind of process or procedure is there yeah so uh our our our vaccine appointments are posted on the town of amherst website on the covid19 page under vaccines we do have rolling availability which some people have experienced some like umass for instance they have a great vaccine clinic that they're offering there at the campus center every once in a while when appointments get full they say there's currently no appointments available and that's the same with us too and the reason is because we want to post vaccine appointments only if we have we have known
019availability because we don't want to have people make appointments and then not be able to provide the um deliverables right we want to be able to vaccinate people and have it be a joyous day um so it's up on our website you can also find us through the mass.gov covid site on where to get a vaccine they just updated the web page today so to be more user-friendly you can search by the zip code and we pop right up there no longer just on that map right under umass almost so you're able to find it there and then that'll lead you to our registration page and people can register for an appointment it's a client based system so you put in your registration you can use email for more than one person if you had
020a family member that didn't have an email or a friend that you were going to help register or an elderly neighbor and then you would click your appointment time for your appointment and then you'll get a confirmation email about your appointment time and then about 24 hours ahead of time we send out a detailed message like a pre-appointment reminder with some instructions to our patients before their appointment at the amherst regional site we have some wheelchairs available we have volunteer positions where i forget the specific name nancy gilbert my board of health chair came up for the name um where i think it's a patient transporter or something like that where we help individuals get out of their cars we've even had some volunteers do some valet a little bit so people didn't have to
021walk too far so really assist those with mobility issues we had our first clinic last wednesday at the high school it was great i think we had some lessons learned as well we adapted our waiting line to be indoors so those wouldn't have to be waiting outside for a period of time because certainly we well we want to be able to socially distance and have those great air changes from those big hepa filters that they got for the schools we also want to be able to keep people warm and not hypothermic so we adapted and overcame that so to make sure it was a safe site for our public emma i'm i'm sure you're aware that there was a proposal from the state firefighters union teaming up with mass con that was presented to the
022state wednesday there hasn't been a response yet from governor baker on it and part of the proposal is to have firefighters and emts come into school districts directly to vaccinate educators with a pilot program for 20 high-need communities if this does get approved by the state how would you see that working in amherst yeah i think that's a great question i haven't seen the pilot um so or or heard of it this is the first time hearing about it gene so i think i would work with we would work alongside chief nelson in the school department to see how it could best fit our community i have no more questions about vaccines uh believe it or not um other than um just again to thank you for everything that you're doing emma i don't think
023people realize um the uh amount of work that you're doing not only for our community but some of the surrounding communities as well yeah that's that's great to point out because we are a hampshire county site our primary communities that we're serving jean are let me see i have to do it in alphabetical order to keep it um amherst beltertown granby hadley hatfield pelham south hadley and where are those communities that we're primarily serving um we've had a a good number from throughout those different communities and then we are starting to work with the local council on aging's and boards of health for those different communities to see how we can address those that are homebound at this time that's something that we're starting to think about and try to problem solve especially with the
024delicate nature of the vaccine as you can imagine but we're really trying to meet our community where we're out uh where where there are communities at do outreach and adapt you know just like christa said i things are changing all the time and um we're just really looking forward to coming together and getting through this current step that we're in and getting to all of you as soon as we can yeah i kind of wanted to echo that thing so like and especially i want to just in case anyone who may be watching doesn't understand like that the first day was what 600 people that cycled through the high school site yep i mean it was okay from the outside looking in it was absolutely seamless and i i think uh i don't know the
025level of professionalism and i mean the level of caring even is just unparalleled and i mean i'm more than grateful for that i i personally got to see people that i knew from the community and it was just great just the way it was all handled like i couldn't appreciate you anymore thank you so much ben so um i know i did hear uh dr fauci say that um april it would he thought it might be what he called open season i think he referred to as far as um what categories of people would be able to get the vaccine um how do you feel about that timeline here in massachusetts considering how low we are in compared to other states yeah i i'm eager for the rollout to be increased um i know that
026that's something with our new administration on the federal level has been a priority um to really increase the speed and supply that we have available i'm about to cough sorry so i i don't i what i want to say is i i hope that the space that we're in in terms of a rollout and timeline gene is just this moment in time where we've had a reduced availability of vaccine i am so hopeful that with this new administration that the whole philosophy and rollout will is improved so that way we can really double down our efforts and exponentially increase our phase rollout at this time who who determines how many doses a state gets yeah i know that there's a federal um committee that works on that i'm not sure exactly who does that off
027the top of my head i wasn't prepared to answer that question but i know that the initial orders of vaccine were much smaller with the previous administration and then following inauguration that ordering has totally been overhauled and the vaccine plan so we're learning more every day and i i'm we were told on the state level that february would be a tough month for vaccine availability but hopefully they were really hoping it would just be a short timeline all right um any parting thoughts from anybody thank you again emma yeah i love these meetings i don't know about anybody else but i have a lot of fun and i just want to say how much um i appreciate everything that everyone in this room and also our extended room um is doing for our students in
028our community uh we value you you're noted um in this tiring time and and take care of yourselves do that self-care uh keep on the good work we're right on the edge of this and together we're gonna make it through as a community thank you perfect but i need it it's good stuff thank you and thank you so much for all your hard work in in helping move our community toward a safe place so thank you thank you happy friday everyone enjoy the long weekend oh yes yeah all right take care