Since July – the official start of airborne lung disease season – Massachusetts has recorded almost 24,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 143 deaths from the disease through September 14th. State data shows Pittsfield has experienced roughly 640 cases per 100,000 residents during that time. That’s the fifth-highest municipal rate in the commonwealth, with other Berkshire communities in the top five like Lanesborough with 658 and Florida with 865 at number one.
Pittsfield’s home vaccination campaign is an attempt to corral the situation heading into the cold months.
“This is actually our second season that we're doing this. We started with a pilot program wanting to address different needs of the community, and with certain agencies closing down, we wanted to make sure that our homebound residents were protected during the flu season, CIVUD season, so we came up with this program to have our public health nurse go out on Mondays and Fridays to apply and give a vaccine," said Director of Public Health Andy Cambi. “They can call our main line at 413-499-9411, and we can help a resident, a Pittsfield resident, they must be a Pittsfield resident, homebound, medically homebound, or they have issues with transportation accessibility, that would qualify them as well. And so, we would take down their information, schedule them an appointment, and our we have an online system called Color, and we would get them an appointment to go out there. It takes about half an hour that from the travel time from the Pittsfield office to the resident within the city limits, and the shot about two or three minutes, and then we will leave, and we're all set.”
In 2023, the city served around 50 residents with its at-home vaccination effort.
Cambi tells WAMC that Pittsfield’s strategy is in line with commonwealth-wide approaches.
“We note that the DPH has also, the Department of Public Health at the state level, has also picked up on the program of providing at home clinics and mobile vaccination clinics as well," he said. "So, it's a trend that we are also part of that seems to be on board with everybody, pretty much to address, what type of accessibility issues do you have, especially regionally? We know transportation, we know that it’s an issue, accessing either the hospital or accessing the pharmacy. So, we want to make sure that we can provide residents with that hardship a resource.”
Pittsfield is encouraging residents with any questions about respiratory illness or getting a vaccine to contact the city for answers.
“We still do the wastewater surveillance, which is our most accurate information about what's going on with the city, as far as with COVID," Cambi told WAMC. "So that's constantly being surveillanced. We have implementation of weekly samples are sent out, and so we monitor that. So, if we were to get an instance of an out of range, higher than normal influx, we would do communication around again reminding people what they need to do, but also providing at home test kits, which we do have at the health department right now.”
A round of traditional vaccination clinics are also planned: September 30th at Greylock Federal Credit Union on Kellogg Street, October 4th at the Elm Street Greylock location, October 8th at the West Street Greylock location, and at Lee Bank on October 11th. All run 11:30 to 1:30.
The Berkshires as a whole are reporting the second-most cases per 100,000 residents in any county of Massachusetts from July into mid-September other than Dukes and Nantucket County with over 443.
