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In Worcester, UMass Memorial Children’s Medical Center is the only hospital-level provider between Boston and Springfield. But it’s located in a region of the state with the highest population growth, which means there are a lot of children under 18, Worcester Medical Director Dr. Michael Hirsh said in an interview.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency will be sending more than $20 million to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to reimburse UMass Memorial Health Care, Inc. for the cost of steps taken during the COVID-19 pandemic. The $20,378,541in Public Assistance grants will reimburse the health care system in Central Massachusetts — headquartered in Worcester and affiliated with the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School — for various costs incurred dealing with the pandemic between March 2020 and January 2022.

Eighteen Central Massachusetts nonprofits have been granted a combined $1.4 million from Worcester-based UMass Memorial Health in partnership with Shields Health in Quincy.

Worcester-based behavioral healthcare provider Community Healthlink has received a $208,000 grant from the City of Worcester for its Shower Program, which is part of CHL’s Homeless Outreach and Advocacy Project.

BOSTON — The Federal Emergency Management Agency will be sending more than $2.3 million to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to reimburse UMass Memorial Health Care, Inc. for the costs of fully staffing the emergency room at UMass Memorial HealthAlliance-Clinton Hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Every minute [without CPR] that goes by, survival drops 10 percent,” said Dr. Joseph Sabato Jr., an associate professor at University of Massachusetts Medical School, retired emergency physician, and medical director of 911 telecommunications for UMass Medical Center.

In her role as secretary, Walsh will also sit on the state’s Health Policy Commission, and will have to navigate her ties to the hospital industry while the commission pursues price caps for the highest-priced providers — an effort to constrain health care spending growth.

Her knowledge of the industry won’t mean she will forgo pressing hospitals for change, said Dr. Eric Dickson, CEO of UMass Memorial Health.

A new CDC study has found that the Covid-19 bivalent booster reduces the risk of symptomatic infection from the most common subvariant circulating in the U.S. right now by about half.

Additional new data, set to be published on the CDC website on Wednesday, also shows that individuals who received an updated vaccine reduced their risk of death by nearly 13 fold, when compared to the unvaccinated, and by two fold when compared to those with at least one monovalent vaccine but no updated booster.

UMass Memorial Health's Deputy Chief of EMS Michael Hunter said whatever you wear, make sure it’s loose fitting. After 30-plus years of experience, Hunter said EMTs see cases of hypothermia and frost bite frequently. "Anyone that's outside needs to cover their skin," said Hunter. "Noses, ears, fingers are very, very susceptible to frost bite."