Testing has always been the first line of defense in the fight against COVID-19. And experts agree that even if the latest surge in Massachusetts has eased, that’s still the case.

“The numbers are decreasing and people are feeling safer, but this is when we need to test further,” said Dr. Kedardespande of the Metro West Medical Center in Framingham.

Dozens of people streamed through the revolving doors at the entrance of the Remillard Family Pavillion last week. Others opted for an open, more traditional doorway, just to the right to enter one of the buildings on the campus of UMass Memorial Health Care’s during the morning pedestrian commute to the hospital. 

Like moths to light, regardless of which entrance, they converged near a woman behind a sheet of plexiglass, who offered a mask to anyone that walked by.

UMass Memorial Health Care and the Clinton Senior Center worked together to bring the coronavirus vaccine to seniors in the town.

Is the COVID-19 vaccine effective if you don’t experience a reaction after receiving it? 

The two coronavirus vaccines have seen emergency approval in the U.S. — one developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and the other by Moderna — may cause side effects after they’re administered, such as pain and swelling at the injection site, and/or fever, chills and headache, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

 UMass Memorial Health Care opened a new COVID-19 vaccine site at downtown Worcester's Mercantile Center on Monday in the latest step to dole out as many vaccines as possible.

The center is open, at least at first, only to UMass Memorial patients aged 75 and older, and by appointment only. The Mercantile Center has donated a big empty space for vaccinations and testing, in the same space that has long been used for coronavirus testing.

The city hopes to vaccinate 1,500 or more people over age 75 against COVID-19 by Saturday, officials said, with signups possibly starting as soon as Monday night. 

In a call Monday afternoon, Dr. Michael P. Hirsh, the city's medical director, said the city will conduct clinics Friday and Saturday that people can sign up for on the state's website. 

While science was crucial to the creation of the COVID-19 vaccine, good old-fashioned trust is key to making the nationwide vaccination effort a success.

With this is mind, the UMass Medical School, in collaboration with the Worcester Department of Health and Human Services, sponsored a webinar Thursday addressing the hesitancy of people in the Latino community to take the COVID-19 vaccine.

UMass Memorial Health Care is setting up a COVID-19 vaccination site at Mercantile Center, adjacent to the COVID-19 testing site.

But UMass Memorial Health Care President and CEO Dr. Eric Dickson said the site will initially be available only to already-identified patients in the UMass Memorial system, not to the general public.

The world has now seen more than 100 million cases of the novel coronavirus since the outbreak of the deadly disease began a year ago. 

COVID-19 has now infected some 100,032,461 people across the globe, according to estimates from Johns Hopkins University. More than 2 million lives have been lost to the virus, which first emerged in Wuhan, China.