Coronavirus

PITTSFIELD — The Pittsfield branch of Berkshire County Head Start closed its doors Tuesday and will remain closed through the week after learning of a potential COVID-19 exposure on Monday night.

For the most part, the booster club has been relatively exclusive – limited largely to people who got two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine during the original rollout, and only specific subsets of those recipients.

Town leaders have crafted, but not yet adopted, a proposed COVID vaccination policy for town employees, including anyone who is paid for providing services to the community — excluding Richmond Consolidated School staffers.

A Lee resident is asking the Pittsfield Board of Health to issue a mask mandate, claiming that the COVID-19 rate is higher in the city than in his hometown of Lee, where a mask mandate has been in effect since early September. 

WASHINGTON — Drugmaker Merck asked U.S. regulators Monday to authorize its pill for treating COVID-19 in what would add an entirely new and easy-to-use weapon to the world’s arsenal against the pandemic.

Vaccine shots are going into arms again with the booster rollout — but the rate of Berkshire County residents who are fully vaccinated continues to stay on a plateau.

With numbers looking good, health officials aren't making any mask-wearing mandates. Yet, a handful of residents came ready to fight one.

Despite urgings from health board and other residents, the Select Board will wait until Oct. 13 to decide who among those serving the town should be covered by a requirement for COVID shots.