Like so much west of Boston, the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester can sometimes be overlooked, despite a history of accomplishment and even a Nobel laureate.

Gerald Chan, the billionaire investor, counts himself among those who had not given much thought to UMass Medical, simply because he’s been focused on the research happening in the Boston area. But after a tour about five years ago, he came away surprised and impressed.

Dr. Robert Finberg, known as one of the nation’s foremost virologists and who played a vital role in researching the COVID vaccine in Worcester, died unexpectedly on Monday, UMass Medical School announced.

Finberg, a professor and chair emeritus of the department of medicine, was 71.

UMass Memorial Health is celebrating their new program, Hospital at Home. It helps patients receive high-quality, hospital-level care in the comfort of their own home.

Nurses are able to deliver medications and in-home care twice each day and doctors visit patients via telehealth at least once each day.

Worcester healthcare provider UMass Memorial Health announced a plan on Wednesday to provide booster doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to all individuals eight months after they received their second vaccine.

The plan is still being reviewed by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control, said a press release from UMass. 

UMass Memorial Medical Center has reopened its COVID-19 command center, establishing a structure to manage a recent increase in cases and plan for the possibility of even more.

The move by the Worcester hospital portends struggles that may lie ahead throughout the health care system, as the pandemic throws new curve balls at traumatized and exhausted providers.

UMass Memorial Medical Center is planning to reopen its command center for the foreseeable future to address what it says are three emerging crises significantly impacting the ability to care for patients in Central Massachusetts.

Those crises are the resurgence of COVID-19 fueled by the delta variant, the closure of 100 hospital beds in the region and a nationwide labor shortage, according to a statement from the medical center.

Some COVID-19 testing sites in Massachusetts are seeing increased demand with the rise of the delta variant, especially one in Worcester.

Workers at the University of Massachusetts Memorial Health testing site at the intersection of Commercial and Mechanics streets say demand has quadrupled over the past three weeks. The site was testing approximately 80 people a day three weeks ago and tested more than 400 on Monday.

UMass Memorial Health on Tuesday accepted its first patient into the new telehealth program, Hospital at Home, which allows patients to stay at home while receiving hospital-level services.

Along with virtual vital-sign monitoring and visits from doctors, patients can have medications and therapy delivered to their homes. 

Doctors, nurses, and their army of colleagues in Massachusetts hospitals are worried and exhausted. The trickle of COVID-19 patients arriving at their doors a month ago has grown to a steadier stream — up 78 percent over the last three weeks.

The faces of those infected are changing, too. No longer is the typical patient a gray-haired 70-year-old with multiple health conditions, they say. Instead, they are seeing many 40- and 50-year-olds, some even younger, who had been healthy before becoming infected. Many are people of color.