There have been many recent opinion pieces in the Concord Monitor about our state government not joining in with the rest of New England and New York in a vaccine alliance. The alliance is a response to the current restructuring of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by our national administration. A similar alliance is happening with Washington, Oregon, California and Hawaii. On Sept. 11, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health declared that all individuals over six months of age and older are eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine in the state.
This was declared with the support of the Mass. Board of Medicine and Pharmacy, the Mass. Department of Insurance and their state medical and pharmacy societies. The Mass. Medical Society president Olivia Liao said, “Our focus must remain where it always has — protecting our patients and communities.”
The other New England states and New York are rapidly using the Massachusetts plan to do the same. It is not clear at this time what the public health policy on vaccines in New Hampshire will be. Will it be universal over the age of six months, like Massachusetts, or more restrictive?
Governor Kelly Ayotte said she does not want to politicize this issue and has said she will go with the advice of her state epidemiologist. Dr. Benjamin Chan has been our state epidemiologist since 2014 and Dr. Jonathan Ballard has been the chief medical officer at the state’s Department of Health and Human Services for just as long.
The governor was elected with her pledge to not “Mass. up” New Hampshire. So if the Massachusetts plan is bad for New Hampshire, then what is the better plan that Ayotte, Chan and Ballard have to protect us and our communities? With no CDC to snuff out infection fires anymore, not only here in the U.S. but throughout the world, the odds are high that old and new infections will cause havoc. That is if you believe in science. With their physician medical backgrounds I want to know what Chan and Ballard, along with the governor, are thinking.
So will we be like Florida where Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo is ending all vaccine mandates on children, including COVID, unless the legislature says otherwise? Is our legislature, like theirs, going to continue to practicing medicine?
Governor Ayotte and your physician team: please give us your answers and guidance. It’s your job to communicate with us and your job to protect our community’s health devoid of politics. Personally, I think we the public will be better off if we “Mass. up” and join the alliance, but I am willing to hear, listen and try to understand your perspective and plan. But please answer us soon. COVID and flu season are soon here.
Nick Perencevich is a semi-retired physician who lives in Concord.