More options to appear on vax sign-up
Massachusetts is expanding its vaccine pre-registration system this week to include appointments at regional vaccination sites in addition to mass vaccination centers, Gov. Charlie Baker announced.
“We plan to keep adding more regional collaboratives during the month of April,” Baker said, speaking at the Oceanside Events Center in Revere.
The Amherst/Northampton and Marshfield regional collaboratives will be the first to come online, and more regional collaboratives will be added throughout the month, Baker said.
The collaboratives offer vaccines at the Northampton Senior Center, the Bangs Community Center in Amherst and the Marshfield Fairgrounds.
Regional collaboratives are run by local health departments. Until this week, the preregistration system would solely connect people to appointments at one of the state’s seven mass vaccination centers. Since the launch of the software on March 12, the Baker administration has said it intended to add additional sites.
More than 1.5 million residents have signed up for appointments via the preregistration system — including Baker, who got his first shot on Tuesday at the Hynes Conventions Center. More than 800,000 people have already been offered the opportunity to schedule an appointment.
As of Wednesday, 1,571,073 people in Massachusetts are fully vaccinated. The state has reported 4,111,327 shots have been given overall.
Baker said the state is still suffering from a “constrained supply” of doses from the feds and warned the speed in which people are able to book appointments depends on the availability of vaccines. On April 19, the state opens up eligibility to everyone over 16 years old.
Baker joined Revere Mayor Brian Arrigo and Boston Neighborhood Health Center CEO Manny Lopes during Wednesday’s press conference at the Oceanside Events Center, which has been converted into a vaccination site.
More than 4,000 people have been vaccinated at the site so far. More than 10,000 people in the city are now fully vaccinated and another 7,000 have received their first shots. Arrigo said the Oceanside site as well as mobile pop-up vaccination clinics have been a “gamechanger” in helping the city combat the deadly coronavirus.
Lopes said data shows a 200 percent month-overmonth increase in the number of Latino residents getting vaccinated — the largest growth of any single racial or ethnic group — as vaccines have become more widely available in communities like Revere.
“So it’s time to get excited,” Lopes said. “It’s our job now to maintain this momentum.”