Marty Walsh, Charlie Baker say improvements coming to Massachusetts vaccine rollout

Improvements are on the way for the slow coronavirus vaccine rollout in Massachusetts, according to Gov. Charlie Baker and Mayor Martin Walsh, who admitted vaccination efforts have been challenging.

“The rollout has caused frustration, it’s been a confusing and inefficient process especially for those who do not have access to the internet. We know that the state is working hard to remedy these issues,” said Walsh at a Monday press conference.

Walsh compared vaccination to the early days of coronavirus testing, saying, “When we started testing it was a very difficult rollout in the very beginning and now it’s cruising along.”

Walsh said he hopes and expects things will speed up and more appointments will become available with help from the state along with the city’s efforts to expand vaccination sites and partner with community organizations for assistance.

Gov. Charlie Baker on Monday said that mass vaccination sites “had a very good week last week … and they’re going to have a very good week this week too.”

The state’s weekly vaccine report on Thursday showed that 111,901 total vaccine doses had been administered and reported in the previous seven days.

As of Sunday, the Bay State had administered 579,181 total doses — a breakdown of 461,408 people receiving at least one dose and 116,315 people receiving two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A total of 1,060,900 doses have been distributed to the state, the CDC reported.

That means less than 55% of doses have been administered, per the CDC data.

“Well keep in mind that we’re the only state in the country that put particular emphasis on congregate care out of the gate,” Baker said about the rollout, noting that has helped vaccinate those in group homes and homeless shelters, people who are developmentally disabled and people dealing with mental health issues.

“We are one of a very small number of states that said we wanted to vaccinate all of our front-line health care workers first out of the gate,” Baker added.

Baker said the call center for the vaccine rollout will be set up this week.

“We continue to make adjustments to the website, and now has features with respect to peoples’ ability to search for particular geographies,” the governor said, later adding, “We’ve been doing a fairly decent look at the way a lot of these sites operate in other states, and we’re going to try to incorporate what we think are the best practices.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3aqMSOM