Baker urges patience, collaboration in virus response

Cape Cod Times (Hyannis, MA)

Apr. 15--JOINT BASE CAPE COD -- Gov. Charlie Baker on Tuesday toured a field hospital at Joint Base Cape Cod intended for coronavirus patients who have been discharged from the hospital but are too sick to go home.

"This went from nothing to what it is now in about six days," Baker said during a press conference after his tour of the gym-turned-hospital.

The facility houses 94 cot-style beds separated by sky-high navy blue privacy curtains. Each bay comes equipped with two pillows and a laptop for medical providers.

The field hospital, considered a step-down facility, will be ready to open this weekend, said Cape Cod Healthcare President and CEO Michael Lauf, whose organization partnered with state emergency management officials and the National Guard to put the facility together.

The field hospital is one of several being pulled together across the state to handle a predicted surge in coronavirus cases in the next week or two.

Baker said a 95-bed field hospital in a University of Massachusetts Lowell recreation center, a partnership with Lowell General Hospital, is on track to open Monday, and work on a 140-bed site at UMass Dartmouth will be finished this week.

Two other field medical centers have been set up so far -- at the DCU Center in Worcester and the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.

The field hospital at Joint Base Cape Cod is equipped with a pharmacy, laboratory, X-ray equipment and electronic medical record capability, Lauf said.

"We have no timetable as to when this facility will be taken down," Lauf said. "We are prepared because of the dedication of this commonwealth."

Cape Cod Healthcare also has established step-down coronavirus facilities at the former Wingate at Brewster nursing home and the newly vacated Royal Falmouth and Nursing Rehabilitation Center, both of which also will be ready for occupancy this weekend, Lauf said.

Together with the field hospital at the military base, the step-down facilities are providing Cape Cod with about 300 extra hospital beds.

During the press conference, Baker announced plans for daily updates of hospital capacity in Massachusetts and of personal protective equipment distribution.

The state has so far distributed more than 3 million pieces of such equipment to hospitals, nursing homes, boards of health and other organizations, Baker said.

Also on Tuesday, Cape Cod Healthcare, Barnstable County and the Cape Cod Commission announced they are publishing a COVID-19 "community alert heatmap" showing how coronavirus cases are distributed across the county.

During the press conference at the Upper Cape military base, also attended by Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito and Maj. Gen. Gary W. Keefe, adjutant general of the Massachusetts National Guard, Baker said he understands people want to know when the state will lift the stay-at-home advisory.

"Reversing course too soon, opening up before we're ready and before we've done some of the things we need to do that we can do it safely and have a plan in place to make sure that we can monitor, measure and survey what's going on will only make matters worse," he said. "Everyone's had to put up with an extraordinary amount of grief and, in many cases, a tremendous amount of loss over the course of the past six weeks. Taking our foot off the pedal with respect to what we need to do to push back right now on this virus would squander in many cases a lot of the progress that we've made."

Massachusetts is among a handful of Northeast states joining in a new council that plans to work on a regional framework to lift the various stay-at-home orders and advisories and reopen their economies.

The other states involved are New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Rhode Island. Massachusetts was not included in the initial announcement, but New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said Monday that Baker would join him and other governors in the effort.

Baker said the delay was because the press conference announcing the council conflicted with a conference call he had with legislative leaders. The group normally sits down for an in-person meeting Monday afternoons but has lately moved that conversation to the phone to comply with social distancing guidelines.

"Every Monday at two o'clock -- we do another one usually on Thursday afternoon as well -- and it's sacrosanct," Baker said. "I mean, it's on the calendar. You can't change it. You've got to be there, and now more than ever we want to make sure that we don't miss those opportunities to talk because we don't have the same type of down-the-hall opportunity to engage when we're not on those phone calls."

Baker said many of the other states in the council are "significant commerce, trading and travel partners with us."

"We are in a different place, in terms of our surge, than some of those other states are, but I do think it's important for us to collaborate and cooperate where it makes sense on a go-forward basis, so that we know what they're doing and they know what we're doing and neither one of us, none of us, does something unintentionally that disadvantages or damages the others," he said.

Baker is the only Republican governor participating in the regional council -- the six other states are led by Democrats. A similar pact on the West Coast involves the Democratic governors of California, Oregon and Washington.

"Tell the Democrat Governors that 'Mutiny On The Bounty' was one of my all time favorite movies," President Donald Trump posted on Twitter Tuesday morning. "A good old fashioned mutiny every now and then is an exciting and invigorating thing to watch, especially when the mutineers need so much from the Captain. Too easy!"

Baker did not directly answer a reporter's question about whether he considered himself to be part of a mutiny.

"If you've learned nothing else about the Baker-Polito administration over the last five years it's that we're a lot more interested in the work that we are in the noise," he said.

Follow Cynthia McCormick on Twitter: @Cmccormickcct.

___

Visit Cape Cod Times, Hyannis, Mass. at www.capecodtimes.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.