The nation’s top health official is set to visit Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston as part of the president’s “Opening Up America Again” initiative, the Herald has learned.
The visit comes as Beth Israel is in the race to help develop a coronavirus vaccine — with testing on humans slated for July. Johnson & Johnson has already announced it is investing $1 billion in that experimental COVID-19 vaccine.
Alex Azar, secretary of Health and Human Services, will tour the hospital Friday, where he will address patient care, testing kit advances and groundbreaking COVID-19 research.
The Herald has also been told Azar will meet with leaders and patients at a local substance abuse treatment center and address other health issues people face as the region emerges from a lockdown.
Azar also said Thursday HHS is “very focused” on 56 “hot spot counties” in the U.S. where the virus has flared up — mostly in Texas, Arizona and North Carolina — that shook the stock market with the Dow dropping 1,800 points.
“We need to be vigilant,” Azar said on Howie Carr’s radio show, adding the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will “surge into outbreak situations” to combat the flare-ups.
He also called on governors to take the lead in tamping down outbreaks and put “best practices” to work. He also said protests are a “worry” and said the destruction of testing sites in Washington, D.C., hurts minority neighborhoods that need access to COVID-19 testing.
He also said he’s “coming to Boston” to help “get the message out” that the nation needs to “get back to work, get back to school, get reconnected to our health care system.”
He said the country has the “tools” to open up the schools this fall “in a safe way.” He stressed local authorities need to be “in the driver’s seat” on any problems, but the schools, economy and health care system cannot be “shut down long term.”
He said “reopening America is about health versus health: balancing the important health benefits of safely reopening and the health costs of staying closed against the health risks of the coronavirus, which Massachusetts is making progress against every day.
“I’m looking forward to meeting with, hearing from, and thanking those on the front lines combating the coronavirus,” he added.
Azar said he will be with Gov. Charlie Baker when he stops in Boston for the day. And, Azar said, he plans to stop by a Boston restaurant.
“I’m looking forward to that. I finally get to eat at a restaurant and be a human again,” he said.
He also praised health care providers and urged people to get cancer screenings and other preventative measures again.
