Chamber News

AIM – Massachusetts legislative leaders today announced an agreement that will avert a 60 percent Unemployment Insurance rate increase while guaranteeing paid leave to employees who are unable to work because they get infected with the coronavirus, are ordered to quarantine, or need to take time off to get the vaccine. The agreement will freeze…

Important training opportunity for Schedule C filers – Sole Proprietorships, Independent Contractors, Self employed and Single Member LLC’s.  SIGN UP FOR EITHER OF THE TWO SESSIONS THIS WEEK: 1. Tuesday, March 9th at 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM 2. Thursday, March 11th at 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM We will be discussing the new PPP…

Boston Business Journal – Years of discussion and numerous state studies finally brought about the potential for lasting change for two thorny health care issues that had been plaguing the state when Gov. Charlie Baker signed a bill last month: behavioral health care and surprise billing. Yet that progress — largely spurred by the pandemic —…

NBC Boston – Massachusetts has now confirmed more than 550,000 coronavirus cases after reporting 1,428 new cases of the virus on Sunday, along with 52 more deaths. The grim milestone comes a little over a year after the first coronavirus case was reported in the Bay State. There have now been totals of 550,302 confirmed cases…

Boston Herald – With the floodgates set to open on another round of unemployment aid, states are being hammered with a new wave of fraud as they scramble to update security systems and block scammers who already have siphoned billions of dollars from pandemic-related jobless programs. The fraud is fleecing taxpayers, delaying legitimate payments and turning…

MassLive – A Massachusetts urgent care company that administered thousands of first doses of the coronavirus vaccine canceled appointments for individuals’ second shot, noting the state cut off its supply. CareWell Urgent Care, a Quincy-based company, vaccinated more than 6,000 people at 16 clinics across Massachusetts but has been canceling appointments for an undisclosed number of patients’ second…

State House News – Massachusetts will likely receive thousands of doses of the newly approved Johnson & Johnson vaccine next week, a step that Gov. Charlie Baker praised Monday as a major turning point in the state’s fight against COVID-19, but significant quantities are not set to arrive until later in March. During a visit…

State House News – As Massachusetts enters the second month of March to be shaded by the coronavirus pandemic, the number of people here who have been fully vaccinated is roughly equal to the number of people who have been infected with COVID-19 over the last year. The equivalent of the population of Methuen — roughly…

WGBH – Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker is pushing for more school districts to adopt in-house COVID-19 screening as they bring students back for classroom learning this spring. Baker appeared at the Nock-Molin Middle School in Newburyport to tour the school’s pool testing operation and reopened in-class learning Friday morning. Baker’s pool testing program, launched in January,…