Resources are now being marshaled to concentrate on a cluster of COVID-19 cases now hitting Chelsea, Gov. Charlie Baker announced Monday afternoon.
Baker said that the state has increased the city’s capacity for testing four-fold and increased distribution of meal kits in the city from 100 a week to 750 a week — the equivalent of about 26,000 meals.
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Baker said that several state agencies were sent to the city and the Massachusetts National Guard will also have an increased presence in there.
According to the city's website, there were 472 confirmed cases of the disease in Chelsea as of Saturday. Of those, 56 patients had recovered while 14 had died.
The governor opened the conference with an update on the state's efforts to maintain services in the face of a powerful storm hitting the region.
Baker said the administration was working with utilities to ensure that they were prepared to respond to power outages in a manner that would keep their workers safe from the virus, and was planning with hospitals, critical facilities and newly created COVID-19 facilities to ensure that generators are delivered to protect continuity of care in the event of an outage.
The governor also discussed efforts his administration has been making since early April to help manufacturers transition to making products like face shields, gowns and swabs for health care workers to meet the state's demand for personal protective equipment.
One of those manufacturers, a Lawrence apparel company called 99 Degrees, has switch to producing one million gowns.
Baker also said the state has received an additional 200 ventilators through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and was inspecting them before the state planned to begin dispensing them to providers later in the evening or early Tuesday.
Matt Murphy of the State House News Service contributed to this report.
