MA Gov. Charlie Baker Touts COVID-19 Response In Farewell Address

SWAMPSCOTT, MA — As Gov. Charlie Baker prepared to head from his Swampscott home to the State House for the final time as the state's highest elected official, he touted his achievements during his eight years in office — highlighting the state's COVID-19 pandemic response — during a video farewell address on Tuesday.

Baker was among the first governors in the country to order non-essential businesses to shut down and issue a stay-at-home advisory, implemented yearlong mask mandates, and at times imposed curfews and evolving capacity and social distancing restrictions during the 14 months that followed March 2020 — then resisted calls to reinstitute some of those mitigation measures statewide during the virus waves that followed May 2021.

"While I know that many of you didn't agree with all of the decisions that the lieutenant governor and I made during the pandemic," he said, "you tried your very best to abide by the rules and share in the work to be done."

On March 15, 2020, he declared a state of emergency and closed all non-essential businesses for, initially, three weeks at the onset of the virus. Those restrictions remained in place to varying degrees until he lifted the state of emergency and all remaining statewide business restrictions effective May 29, 2021.

Baker also backed the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education's push to get students back in the classroom in the spring of 2021 and to allow for the voluntary removal of masks effective Feb. 28, 2022.

Baker's popularity remained among the highest of any governor in the country during the COVID-19 health crisis while he simultaneously often took heat from both sides of the political and public health spectrum who felt he was either overstepping the bounds of government and not going far enough with stricter mask and vaccine mandates.

"We've recovered almost all of the jobs lost during the pandemic," Baker said. "That's why we have an unemployment rate that's below the natural average and why the nationally renowned Commonwealth Foundation concluded that we did a better job of managing the pandemic than any other state except Hawaii."

Baker also cited his administration's work on affordable housing, broadband access, youth services and what he called its ability to govern the state "without partisan bickering."

"Despite a myriad of political fights and distractions that were raging all around us," he said. "people here chose to focus on the work and it paid off."

His Swampscott home was also the target of frequent protests and even a breaking-and-entering attempt in October 2021 when a man was accused of walking through an unlocked exterior door and leaving a letter while Baker's wife and daughter were home.

Baker will next take on the challenge of leading the beleaguered national Collegiate Athletic Association after he was named the NCAA's next president starting in March last month.

The NCAA said in a statement announcing Baker's appointment that it "marks the culmination of a comprehensive and inclusive national search process" and lauded his bipartisan leadership in Massachusetts in an era of divisive national politics and amid the COVID-19 health crisis, as well as his turnaround of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care as its chief executive officer when it was on the verge of bankruptcy prior to him running for governor.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)