COVID Command Center Comes To An End

The COVID-19 Command Center that the Baker administration stood up in the early days of the public health crisis will disband now that the state of emergency is over, Gov. Charlie Baker said Tuesday.

Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders led the command center since its inception, overseeing its coordinated response to the pandemic.

"It's been the strategic source for much of the things we've done as an administration over the course of the past year, from testing to contact tracing to PPE to monitoring hospital surge capacity to standing up field hospitals and isolation and recovery centers to working with our colleagues in congregate and long-term care to vaccine distribution and everything else in between," Baker said. "The command center's had a huge role to play in all of our efforts."

In addition to stepping down the command center, Baker announced that his administration convened its final Medical Advisory Board formal meeting last week. Administration officials hosted a barbecue-themed thank you party for COVID-19 response staff on Monday afternoon ahead of the announcement.

"We've done it privately, but I want to thank publicly everybody who served as part of that command center and on our Medical Advisory Board," Baker said. "While we're formally transitioning out of the command center, we'll continue to monitor all of the public health data that we've been tracking since this began."