Baker Defends Mass Vaccination Sites And Use Of Consultants At Oversight Hearing

Gov. Charlie Baker defended his decisions to work with private consulting firms on vaccination plans and to focus more doses on the state's mass vaccination sites as he appeared back before the Legislature's COVID-19 oversight committee on Tuesday.

"I do believe, given all the issues associated with supply, the nature of the supply, the nature of the roll out, how fast it has to happen and how people needed to manage the product itself, we made the right decision," Baker, a Republican, said as he answered lawmakers' questions remotely from his corner office.

Much of the criticism coming from Democrats on the panel concerned the Baker administration's emphasis on mass vaccinations over pre-existing pandemic vaccination plans to utilize the state's network of local boards of health, organizations that could target the neediest recipients.

"These are decisions that you're making, and I, we, don't understand them. We are so worried about the people that are being left behind," Sen. Cindy Friendman, D-Middlesex, told Baker after his opening remarks.

Massachusetts is currently the 13th most vaccinated state, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with 15.5% of the state's nearly 7 million residents fully inoculated. Just over 29% of the state has received at least one dose of the two-dose treatments.

The commonwealth also ranks first in both total doses administered per capita and in first doses delivered per capita in states with more than four million residents.

Baker said his "mixed model" of sending doses to local health boards, mass vaccination sites and health care providers has been successful.

"As unhappy as some people may be with that decision, you know, we are outperforming every other state in the country across most of the CDC's key performance measures. And I think that's an important fact with respect to whether or not the choices we made were effective or not," Baker said.

Baker also testified at the committee's first hearing on Feb. 25.

Attitudes from Democrats outside the State House were as pointed as those involved in the virtual hearing. A crowd of around 15 nurses, doctors and public health advocates gathered on the State House steps before Baker's testimony to take him to task over abandoning pre-established vaccine distribution plans in favor of new plans drawn up by private consultants.

"The Baker administration awarded McKinsey and Company a no-bid contract just five days after the state of emergency was declared, a contract for core government services. At least eight extensions since then have paid out about $18 million," state Sen. Becca Rauch, D - Norfolk, Bristol and Middlesex, said at the masked, outdoor rally.

Over three million individual doses of vaccine have been administered in Massachusetts, with over one million people now fully vaccinated.