Lawmakers have promised to “swiftly” pass a $55 million bill for expanded coronavirus testing, youth vaccination education efforts and higher-quality masks for schools and send it to Gov. Charlie Baker’s desk as early as next week.
“Today, … we (are) increasing the availability of rapid testing sites, increasing access to high quality masks for students and teachers and supporting vaccine equity efforts to ensure we can continue to carefully navigate the coming months,” Ways and Means Committee co-chairmen Sen. Michael Rodrigues, D-Westport, and Rep. Aaron Michlewitz, D-Boston, said in a joint statement.
The House Committee on Ways and Means released the supplemental bill on Tuesday and a vote is expected later this week.
Senate President Karen Spilka has vowed to follow suit and pass a similar spending plan early next week.
“The @MA_Senate continues to work to meet the evolving needs of our residents due to COVID-19, and this legislation is the latest in those efforts. Our thanks to the House for working together and filing this bill; we look forward to taking this issue up next week,” the Ashland Democrat said on Twitter.
The bill earmarks $30 million for more COVID testing sites, at least $5 million dedicated to expanding vaccination rates among kids ages 5 to 11 and $25 million for “the acquisition and distribution of high-quality personal protective masks for children and faculty in elementary and secondary public school districts.”
It also compels the Baker administration to create a public website with information on the number of masks purchased and distributed to school districts and information on the purchase and distribution of rapid COVID-19 tests.
If the Legislature makes good on its promise, it will be an unusually hasty move for the body that took seven months to distribute billions in federal coronavirus aid given to the state, despite criticism from Baker who requested “immediate” disbursement.
But the narrative has flipped amid the ongoing omicron outbreak, with Democratic lawmakers calling on the Republican Baker “to be more present” and castigating the administration’s resistance to more stringent coronavirus restrictions like an indoor mask mandate and expanded testing.
House lawmakers also set the date for this year’s state primary for Sept. 6.
The Biden administration on Tuesday launched a website for Americans to request free at-home COVID-19 tests.
The soft launch comes a day before the site was scheduled to officially go online.
The website, COVIDTests.gov, now includes a link for Americans to access an order form run by the U.S. Postal Service.
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People can order four at-home tests per residential address. According to the website, the tests will be shipped at the end of January.
At points Tuesday more than 750,000 people were accessing the website at the same time, according to public government tracking data, but it was not immediately known how many orders were placed.
On the web: https://special.usps.com/testkits
