Fenway vax site to pack up, head for Hynes
Baker says it became too complicated with the Sox getting ready for season
As the Red Sox prepare to play ball next month, the mass vaccination site at historic Fenway Park will relocate to the Hynes Convention Center.
The Hynes will begin accepting patients on March 18, while the last shot-seeker will pass through Fenway’s turnstiles on March 27, providing some overlap during the transition. Anyone whose second dose is scheduled at Fenway after the park’s vaccination site closes will be able to get their shot at the convention center.
Fenway opened its gates to vaccine-seekers in late January and is one of seven mass vaccination centers statewide. More than 25,000 doses have been administered in the bowels of the ballpark, and operator CIC Health expects that will grow to 55,000 by the end of the month.
But the site’s fate has been up in the air since Gov. Charlie Baker announced stadiums would be able to welcome back fans up to 12% capacity beginning March 22 — in time for the Sox opening day on April 1.
“The fundamental purpose of Fenway Park is to provide a place for the Red Sox to practice and play baseball,” Baker said in a press conference Thursday announcing the move.
Hynes presents “a more permanent solution” and has the ability to scale up doses administered “to a significantly larger number without the distraction that would come of being part of a ballpark that’s actually active,” Baker said.
CIC Health, which runs mass vaccination sites at Fenway, Gillette Stadium and the Reggie Lewis Center, will run the Hynes site as well. The Hynes will ramp up to about 1,500 doses per day — the amount currently administered at Fenway — with the goal of reaching 5,000 per day as supply increases.
“We are beyond grateful for our instrumental partnership with the Boston Red Sox,” CIC Health said in a statement. “We look forward to applying the critical lessons learned at Fenway Park, Gillette Stadium, and the Reggie Lewis Center to our new mass vaccination site.”
The Sox initially said they expected Fenway “to continue to operate as a mass vaccination site beyond the start of the regular season.”
But Baker on Thursday said the return of players and practices — let alone fans and games — “complicated” those efforts.
Baker announced the shift to the Hynes while touring a vaccination site for seniors run by Greater Lawrence Community Health Center at St. Patrick’s Church Parish Center in Lawrence, where he highlighted local efforts to get shots into arms and announced a new regional collaborative among lower Merrimack Valley health departments.
“There has been a large hesitancy in members of our community to obtain the vaccines,” Lawrence Mayor Kendrys Vasquez said. “In order to ensure that they get it, it is important that we meet them where they are, and this is exactly what is happening today.”