The COVID-19 public fitness emergency in Massachusetts and the vaccination mandate for more than 40,000 state workers will end on May 11, Gov. Maura Healey announced Wednesday.
The state of emergency, which was declared on May 28, 2021, has allowed the state commissioner of public fitness to take steps for COVID-19 testing and vaccination, protect high-risk populations, continue virus surveillance, and respond in a different way. to shoots.
May is the expiration date of the federal emergency declaration.
“Three years after the pandemic, we are now in a very different place,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kate Walsh said in a statement. “While we continue to live with COVID-19, we can now integrate the team to manage this virus. in our ongoing reaction to respiratory illnesses within our communities and fitness system. “
Former Governor Charlie Baker declared a state of emergency around COVID-19 in March 2020. As vaccines began to become available to wider swaths of the public in the spring of 2021, many restrictions were lifted, leading the state to a more limited public fitness emergency. which has been operating ever since.
In keeping with the end of state and federal emergencies, Healey plans to rescind an executive order, issued by Baker, that required tens of thousands of state executives to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
That order, Healey’s said, helped increase the vaccination rate among workers from about 76 percent to more than 99 percent. It also provoked a legal challenge through the union representing state soldiers.
On Wednesday, the Massachusetts State Police Association thanked Healey for his goal of lifting the order and said 20 of its members had been fired or suspended without pay because of “sincere and devoted ideals that save them from receiving a COVID-19 vaccine. “”
Some staff will still be subject to vaccination mandates under regulations from the state executive office of health and human welfare and the federal centers for Medicare and Medicaid, Array Healey’s office said.
Healey also said he would introduce a law that would allow physical care organizations to retain some flexibilities allowed during the emergency, namely when it comes to staffing.
Healey’s announcement comes three years after Baker, as part of the state’s initial reaction to the ongoing pandemic, issued an unprecedented series of final orders from schools for three weeks, banning maximum gatherings of more than 25 other people and banning on-site eating. in restaurants
Katie Lannan covers State House for GBH News.
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