Teachers Up For Coronavirus Vaccine 'Adoption' In Salem: Patch PM

SALEM, MA — It's Tuesday, March 16. Here's what you should know this afternoon:

• Salem is looking for volunteers to "adopt" city education and childcare workers and help them search for and book coronavirus vaccination appointments.
• Peabody, Danvers residents were among those injured in Monday's six-vehicle, chain-reaction crash that shut down Route 1 in Revere for more than two hours.
• The Department of Public Health said Tuesday the state's first known case of the Brazilian coronavirus variant was confirmed in Barnstable County. Meanwhile, the state saw a modest increase in its weekly allotment of the coronavirus vaccines.
• A lawsuit claiming state-funded circumcisions are a waste of taxpayer money will be allowed to move forward following a Suffolk Superior Court judge's ruling last week.
• Thousands of Massachusetts workers qualify for state food assistance programs despite having jobs with some of the world's biggest companies.

Scroll down for more on those and other stories Patch has been covering in Massachusetts today.

Top North Shore Story

Salem is looking for help getting educators and childcare workers vaccinated for the coronavirus.

The city, school department and teachers union are looking for volunteers through Salem Together to help find and book vaccine appointments for those who are eligible, but whose responsibilities prevent them from spending hours each school day looking for appointments.

"We're asking residents to sign up to adopt a few of the workers who are instrumental to the academic and emotional wellbeing of our city's children," Salem Mayor and School Committee President Kim Driscoll said. "If you're able, please help as we work to find vaccination appointments for as many of these essential employees as quickly as possible."

Read the full story.

Top Statewide Story

State officials expect to receive 170,000 doses of the coronavirus vaccine this week, a modest increase from the 155,000 Massachusetts has been given by the federal government in previous weeks.

The shipment, which Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker announced Monday, includes 8,000 doses of Johnson & Johnson's single-shot vaccine. The shipment came as a surprise to state officials, who had been told not to expect any more Johnson & Johnson vaccine in March as the company ramped up production of the recently-approved drug.

The three companies making vaccines approved for emergency use by the FDA have said the amount of vaccine they can produce and distribute should increase dramatically in the coming weeks. But Massachusetts does not expect to move onto the next phase of its vaccination program, where all state residents will be eligible to get the shot, until next month.

Read the full story.

Exclusively On Patch

The working poor in Massachusetts: Thousands of Massachusetts workers qualify for state food assistance programs despite having jobs with some of the world's biggest companies. In the first of a three-part series, Patch looks at five years of data from the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance and finds companies like Walmart, Stop & Shop, Target and Dollar Tree employ thousands of Massachusetts residents who still need government food assistance to make ends meet.

Read the full story.

Tuesday's Other Top Stories

Peabody, Danvers residents injured in six-vehicle pileup: Two Peabody residents sustained serious, potentially life-threatening injuries when the driver of a tractor-trailer owned by a Danvers trucking company rear-ended them and caused a chain-reaction crash on Route 1 in Revere on Monday, according to Massachusetts State Police.

Cut it out: A lawsuit claiming state-funded circumcisions are a waste of taxpayer money will be allowed to move forward following a Suffolk Superior Court judge's ruling last week. Ronald Goldman, an anti-circumcision activist from Boston, and 27 other plaintiffs filed the lawsuit challenging the way MassHealth pays for the procedure. Goldman's complaint argues that taxpayer dollars should not be used to pay for medically-unnecessary circumcisions.

Brazilian coronavirus variant on Cape Cod: The Department of Public Health said Tuesday the state's first known case of the variant was confirmed in Barnstable County. A woman in her 30s tested positive for the variant, known as P.1, in late February. Other variants have already been spreading in Massachusetts. One that originated in the United Kingdom, B.1.1.7, has been confirmed in 213 people here. The B.1.351 variant, first found in South Africa, has been confirmed in six residents.

Orange line riders see red: A low-speed derailment on the Orange Line disrupted service late Tuesday morning. A spokesperson for the MBTA said a northbound train was slowly crossing over to the southbound track when it derailed at Wellington Station.

Police department cleared in probe: An independent investigation into the actions of officers in the Needham Police Department who stopped and detained a Black man they suspected of shoplifting last year, found that there was no racial profiling. The independent investigation comes a month after the police department's internal investigation exonerated the officers of racial profiling. Both investigations found issue with the officers reporting methods and stressed that operational and procedural changes be made in the department.

In Case You Missed It

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• Gov. Baker's Approval Rating Tumbles As Pandemic Takes Toll
• MA State Workers Had More Job Security In Pandemic: Study