Pawtucket schedules vaccinations for residents 75 and older

Photo courtesy US Military Health Service

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Pawtucket is now making appointments for city residents 75 and older for the coronavirus vaccine, city officials said Tuesday.

Mayor Donald Grebien said that starting Feb. 20, the clinics will alternate between St. Anthony Parish Center and Jenks Middle School, WPRI-TV reported.

The state Department of Health has allocated 480 vaccines per clinic, according to Grebien. Each clinic is open by appointment only.

Information is available in English, Spanish, Portuguese and Cape Verdean Creole. Residents can also call the city’s COVID-19 hotline at 855-843-7620.

“We ask that everyone awaiting a vaccine remain patient and continue to do the right things like wearing a mask, washing their hands, and practicing social distancing,” Grebien said.

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DAILY NUMBERS

Rhode Island health officials on Tuesday reported 330 more confirmed coronavirus cases, 12 additional virus-related deaths and a daily positivity rate of 2.7%.

Of the 330 new cases, 305 were positive tests from Monday, and 25 were in people who tested positive on previous days, the state Department of Health reported.

There have now been more than 119,400 confirmed cases and 2,248 deaths in the state during the pandemic.

There were 242 patients in Rhode Island’s hospitals with the disease, according to the latest data from Monday, up slightly from the previous day.

The latest seven-day average positivity rate in Rhode Island is 2.57%. State health departments are calculating positivity rate differently across the country, but for Rhode Island the AP calculates the rate by dividing new cases by test encounters using data from The COVID Tracking Project.

The seven-day rolling average of daily new cases in Rhode Island has now dropped from about 721 on Jan. 25 to almost 450 on Monday, The COVID Tracking Project said.

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UNEMPLOYMENT FRAUD

The Rhode Island Department of Labor continues to see pandemic-related unemployment insurance fraud, but is working hard to detect and prevent it, officials say.

“We’re seeing enormous claim levels right now, and a lot of those claims are fraud,” department Director Scott Jensen told a Senate Oversight Committee on Monday.

During the pandemic, the agency has paid out about $23 million in fraudulent unemployment claims, which is about 1% of the total paid to Rhode Islanders. About $3.5 million in the fraudulent claims have been recouped, and the agency has another insurance claim pending to recover more money.

The department now has an automated system in place to recognize fraud quicker, Jensen told the committee. It uses algorithms to better recognize patterns such as what banks the account is linked to, or what IP address the claim is coming from, he said.

Anyone who thinks they are a victim of fraud should report it , he said.

The state so far hasn’t had to borrow from the federal government to pay people’s benefits, something Jensen said many other states have done.

“That means Rhode Island employers aren’t going to have to pay back a loan with interest to the federal government,” he said.