EXPECTATIONS ARE RUNNING HIGH that Gov. Charlie Baker will begin to throw open the economy on Monday, but sources say the coming week will see relatively few changes. Business groups […]
Reopening expected to be slow, cautious
Posted inOpinion
Getting to the new normal
EXPERTS AND THOUGHT LEADERS across the globe are putting a lot of thought into the urban response to COVID-19, and particularly the best approaches to steer our cities and metropolitan […]
Posted inOpinion
Shut down DCF’s homeless pipeline
NICOLE, A YOUTH at More Than Words, turned 18 this month and was terrified. The milestone would be dampened for anyone during this pandemic, but Nicole was losing her housing […]
Posted inOpinion
Structural racism is the real pandemic
AS THE DEATH TOLL mounts daily from COVID-19, so do the headlines and data documenting its disparate impact on communities of color, especially black people, immigrants, native people, poor people, […]
Posted inOpinion
Residential direct-care workers are essential
THROUGHOUT THE COVID-19 crisis, residential direct-care personnel have selflessly risked their health for the well-being of others. When we hear the term essential, most of us think of the hospital […]
Posted inOpinion
We need to start using less natural gas
WITH THE CORONAVIRUS pandemic raging, it’s hard to think about anything else. Yet precisely because this is a time of major upheaval, we need to recognize, and prepare for, the […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
Tales from the legislative trenches
RESPONDING TO THE fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, the Legislature recently passed and the governor signed an eviction and foreclosure moratorium law. It enables people who are unemployed or lost income […]
Posted inUncategorized
Boston hearing focuses on language barriers
BOSTON CITY COUNCILORS Julia Mejia and Ed Flynn held a hearing Friday focused on the language barriers non-native English speakers are facing during the coronavirus pandemic. Fittingly, the hearing was […]
Posted inHealth Care, State House News Service
Legislative panel backs 2 safe injection sites
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE A LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE endorsed a proposal to establish at least two locations in Massachusetts for supervised drug consumption, giving some momentum to a controversial idea that […]
Posted inHealth Care
Don’t expect ‘bold’ reopening report
GOV. CHARLIE BAKER said his administration’s reopening report coming on Monday is a well-thought-out piece of work, describing it with words like cautious, careful, slow, and steady. “I absolutely know […]
Posted inHealth Care
Mass General Brigham: COVID-19 costing us $400m a month
MASS GENERAL BRIGHAM said COVID-19 is costing the hospital system about $400 million a month in lost patient revenue, which contributed to an operating loss of $178 million for the […]
Posted inOpinion
Doctors for decarceration
IMAGINE YOU ARE TRAPPED in a room with 20 other people. You share one sink. You have limited access to soap and hand sanitizer. You can’t leave. Then, someone starts […]
Posted inEnvironment
Coronavirus risks: Know them, avoid them
IT SEEMS MANY people are breathing some relief, and I’m not sure why. An epidemic curve has a relatively predictable upslope and once the peak is reached, the back slope […]
Posted inHealth Care
Kids are getting sick, too
IF THERE HAS BEENÂ one bright spot with the dangerous COVID-19 disease, it had been that children were largely spared. Since the pandemic started, Massachusetts has reported 3,111 COVID-19 cases in […]
Posted inThe Download
Kids are getting sick, too
If there has been one bright spot with the dangerous COVID-19 disease, it had been that children were largely spared. Since the pandemic started, Massachusetts has reported 3,111 COVID-19 cases […]
Posted inHealth Care
Audits uncovering non-compliant nursing homes
AUDITS OF MORE THAN 350 skilled nursing homes across the state indicate a minority but significant number of the facilities are not in adherence with a 28-point checklist of infection […]
Posted inGambling
COVID-era casinos will feature temperature checks, masks
THE NEXT TIME patrons walk into a Massachusetts casino, they may have their temperature checked at the door and be handed a facemask. When a patron sits down at the […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Courts to start reopening in phases this summer
MASSACHUSETTS COURTHOUSESÂ are tentatively planning to start reopening for in-person proceedings in phases at some point this summer with jury trials set to resume in September if schools reopen, according to […]
Posted inEconomy
Mass. should suspend lottery ticket sales
LAST MONTH, Massachusetts Lottery officials announced recent sales figures for lottery tickets. The numbers aren’t pretty. Sales from the week ended April 18 were down 33 percent compared to the […]
Posted inHealth Care
Baker wants to be world’s biggest COVID-19 tester
GOV. CHARLIE BAKER unveiled a COVID-19 testing initiative on Thursday that he said would make Massachusetts the biggest tester on a per capita basis in the world. Massachusetts is already […]
Posted inEducation
Class warfare: School status for the fall unclear
K-12 SCHOOL BOARD battles and faculty infighting in higher ed can often be as fierce as any street brawl. It’s only fitting, then, that education seems to be the issue that […]
Posted inThe Download
Class warfare: School status for the fall unclear
K-12 school board battles and faculty infighting in higher ed can often be as fierce as any street brawl. It’s only fitting, then, that education seems to be the issue […]
Posted inOpinion
At MGH, they worry about a second surge
This is the tenth conversation between Dr. Jarone Lee, a frontline critical care and emergency physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and associate professor at Harvard Medical School, and Dr. Paul […]
Posted inOpinion
We can’t accept status quo in public health any longer
LAST WEEK, Gov. Charlie Baker signed into law the State Action for Public Health Excellence Act, which is now Chapter 72 of the Acts of 2020. The bill was signed […]