Mass Governor Charlie Baker was in Peabody Mass today for an announcement on the Skills Capital Grant Program but a number of questions were posed to the Gov. on the where he stands on re-imposing a COVID mask mandate once again in the state.

Baker said “I am not considering changing the Mass guidance.” He continued “at this time” sighting that the state is better protected than most of the country because of the state’s above average COVID vaccination levels as well as the current rate of hospitalizations in the state.  Baker said “…you can’t look at the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and look at our vaccination rate or hospitalization rate and compare it to where the rest of the country is.”

According to “Our World in Data” 67% of Mass residents are fully vaccinated.  That is close to 4.5 million people with two jabs.  Close to 5.1 million Mass residents have received at least one vaccination adding up to almost 74% of the state’s population. The U.S. percentage of fully vaccinated people is 51.3% or 168 million people.  Over 9 ½ million doses have been injected in Massachusetts and 356 million across the country.

In Berkshire County according to CovidActNow 46.8% of Berkshire residents are fully vaccinated, just about on par with the state’s average.  Just over 53% have received at least one vaccination.  The Berkshires vulnerability level remains at “medium” according to CovidActNow.  In the last two-week period, there have been 8061 COVID-19 tests administered locally.  That is up by 1,679 tests over the prior two weeks.  Confirmed cases in the last two-week window has risen to 224, up from 130 two weeks prior based on data from publichealthwm.org. The ‘current” two-week data is from July 25th-August 7th.

If you are in need of a test or a vaccination, click on this link to the Berkshire Vaccine Collaborative for information.

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