Editorial: Massachusetts needs to recruit a vaccination army

Earlier this month, UMass officials led by UMass Medical School Chancellor Dr. Michael Collins and system President Marty Meehan proposed the state should partner with schools to build a program recruiting nursing and medical students to administer the COVID-19 vaccine. This group, led by UMass students, could then go around the state training others and speed up the distribution and delivery of the roughly 10 million vaccine doses the state will need for its adult population. UMass is now testing this effort in Worcester, and if it is successful, the state should consider implementing the plan widely as soon as possible. To date, America’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has been mismanaged and uneven, at best. Now with the solution of a vaccine at our doorstep, we continue to trip up in the execution phase, with a slow vaccine rollout. With hospitals in many states strained beyond capacity, more than 400,000 Americans dead, and a new variant of the virus spreading the disease quicker, now is the time for bold, fresh ideas. We can’t have any further delays in achieving herd immunity. There is too much at stake. With the incoming President Joe Biden Administration, fresh resources will be brought to bear to accelerate testing and tracing programs, as well as new plans for mass inoculations. Right now, only about 40% of the available U.S. vaccines have been administered, although the number is closer to 70% in Massachusetts. So we’re already delivering better than most states. However until we can achieve herd immunity, get people comfortable resuming their pre-pandemic lives, and finally getting the economy humming again, we need to double down on delivering vaccines in arms. A myriad of reasons led to the country falling woefully behind in administering available vaccines, but moving forward, one of the reasons shouldn’t be a lack of healthcare professionals available to give the inoculations to willing and eligible patients. Collins and Meehan at UMass should be applauded for their innovative – albeit somewhat obvious – solution to training more people for this all-important task. The pandemic has wrought havoc for businesses and their workers, taken a toll on people’s mental health, and been a major drain on our economy. This only ends when we reach herd immunity, and for that to happen ASAP, we need a vaccination army.