After 'Impending Doom' Warning, CDC Head To Join Baker In Boston

BOSTON — The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will join Gov. Charlie Baker for his Tuesday afternoon news conference, just one day she warned of "impending doom" due to the rise of coronavirus cases across the country.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky and FEMA administrator Robert Fenton will be at the Hynes Convention Center mass vaccination site for the 1 p.m. conference. Baker will also be joined by Sen. Ed Markey and Congressman Stephen Lynch.

The federal government will help the new Hynes site ramp up to become the state's most prolific COVID-19 vaccination location. FEMA will give 6,000 extra doses per day to the site, bringing the total daily allocation to 7,000. The site will also be staffed by FEMA workers.

Walensky, a Peabody native and Newton resident who was the former head of the infectious disease division at Massachusetts General Hospital, said Monday she was "scared" following a national uptick in coronavirus cases.

"I'm going to lose the script," she said. "And I'm going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom. We have so much to look forward to, so much promise and potential of where we are, and so much reason for hope, but right now I'm scared. I know what it's like as a physician to stand in that patient room — gowned, gloved, masked, shielded — and to be the last person to touch someone else's loved one because their loved one couldn't be there."

President Joe Biden later in the day echoed her warning, asking state leaders to keep restrictions in place or reinstate them if they've been lifted.

Massachusetts has entered into a new phase of reopening despite a rise in cases; the state could surpass 600,000 COVID-19 cases this week. But hospitalizations haven't increased at the same rate — though they have been rising — and deaths have decreased, indicating the state's strategy at vaccinating its most vulnerable residents first might be paying off.

The state on Monday reported 1,464 new cases, 675 hospitalizations and 15 deaths. Over 40,000 people got vaccinated Sunday, with 18,675 getting either their second Moderna or Pfizer shot or their single Johnson & Johnson dose.

ALSO: A car crashed into a Roxbury vaccination site Tuesday morning. Appointments are still on for the day.