After a rugged federal implementation of the COVID vaccine, Massachusetts health officials managed to obtain 141,108 first doses in the arms of health professionals, employees and residents of long-term care facilities across the state on Tuesday, according to the Department of Public Health.
The second wave of shots, scheduled to be administered next week, will be aimed at police and emergency responders, followed by immunizations for those in congregated care settings. Prisoners and homeless people in shelters will come after the first respondents due to the high risk of spreading in these places. The authorities predict that the first of the three phases of the state’s vaccination effort will last until February.
So, at the current pace of implementation, when will the photos be available to the general public and will shipping scarcity affect the schedule?
People aged 75 and over
The state’s initial projections for vaccinating the general public were for spring 2021. But health officials are still making adjustments to their prioritization list, doing so only on Monday, when residents over 75 and residents of all ages with two or more comorbid health conditions were prioritized for the start of the second phase.
This shift in prioritization affects approximately 170,000 Massachusetts residents over 75, who will now be eligible for their first doses earlier than anticipated – perhaps weeks earlier. Officials say they are still making the effort step by step.
“As the process progresses, additional specific groups will continue to be added,” said a spokesman for the Department of Public Health by email.
The official list is updated twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 5 pm, and can be consulted at: www.mass.gov/info-details/when-can-i-get-the-covid-19-vaccine.
As part of the state’s plan to vaccinate police officers and first respondents, officials have established about 60 vaccination sites across the state, where they can be vaccinated by appointment, Governor Charlie Baker said on Tuesday. These “mass vaccination sites” will be part of the general launch, he said.
Almost all hospitals in the state – 74 or 76, according to Baker – have received shipments of the vaccine and given vaccines to their workers since the effort began in December. As of Tuesday, the state had dispatched 328,000 doses of the COVID vaccine to providers across the state.
Receiving the vaccine will continue to depend on a number of important partnerships: CVS and Walgreens, with which Massachusetts has partnered specifically for the purpose of providing residents and employees at long-term care facilities with access to vaccines, and the federal government.
Officials working in federal government buildings in Massachusetts, such as the VA and the Department of Defense, receive the vaccine through a separate federal distribution channel and are not counted as part of the state’s totals, health officials said.
On Tuesday, Baker expressed optimism about the current statewide vaccination rate, despite a hiccup in December, when health officials were told about an unexpected reduction in the number of doses ordered.
“Hospitals across the community received the vaccine at the same time as this process was implemented, and the development process will continue as the vaccine is made available by the federal government through its distribution channels,” said Baker on Tuesday .
While recognizing the unstable beginning of federal implantation, doctors across the state say the effort to vaccinate health workers, which ends this week, has been relatively painless. Douglas T. Golenbock, head of the UMass Medical School Division of Infectious Diseases and Immunology, said the implementation encountered problems only “because it is a huge task”.
“The system has not yet been adjusted,” he said. “In a month, it must look much better.”
Phase 2 and 3 of vaccinations
Most vaccinations are expected to happen in phases 2 and 3. The second phase includes an extensive list of workers, covering everything from early childhood education and K-12 educators to traffic, grocery, food and agriculture, restaurant workers and cafes and public works employees. This effort is expected to start in February, lasting until March.
Everyone
If everything goes according to plan, state officials hope to start vaccinating everyone else from April to June. This group generally includes higher education workers, including “administrators, teachers and non-teachers; bottled beverage industry workers; Veterinarians; undertakers and undertakers ”.
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