Charlie Baker urges patience with Massachusetts coronavirus vaccine rollout

Massachusetts is planning about 120,000 new appointments this week for the COVID-19 vaccine.

But according to Governor Charlie Baker, that doesn’t necessarily mean all eligible residents are guaranteed to land one next week or the following week.

“Everyone should understand that it may take several weeks in some cases to make an appointment,” Baker told reporters Wednesday after a visit to the new mass vaccination site at Fenway Park in Boston, urging residents to be ” patients’ with slowness, even incipient. the first stages of vaccine deployment in the state.

“Vaccines are not going anywhere,” he added. “And they will continue to come to the Commonwealth – and we believe in more – over the next few months.”

With federal approval of additional vaccines and the increase in supply, Baker said the state aims to deliver one million doses per month this spring.

However, around a month and a half after the state’s launch, the Baker administration came under scrutiny for the accelerated pace of its distribution compared to most other states. And while all residents over 75 can now – at least in theory – book immunization appointments, the state’s online registration system has been criticized by lawmakers and residents for its difficulty in navigating, which exacerbates frustrations with the low number of time slots. .

As of Monday evening, 654,104 doses had been administered to residents of Massachusetts.

“Look, I’m not happy with our situation,” Baker said Wednesday. “I know a lot of others aren’t either. We have work to do and we know it. And one of the best things a good manager does is recognize and understand that he has a problem, and then break his ass to figure out how to fix it.

Some adjustments are already underway.

Baker reiterated that the state is working to set up a call center to help manage vaccine appointments. According to The Boston Globe, the hotline will be a “reminder system”, in which eligible residents can request an appointment and then be notified when a time slot is available. According to Baker, the call center will be operational “this week”.

The state has also made changes to its vaccine appointment webpage, including a tool that allows users to search for sites based on their zip code. However, once users choose a site, the page sends them to the provider’s third-party website to sign up and make the actual appointment.

Dozens of lawmakers have called for a more centralized registration system, but Baker said “part of the challenge” is getting the state’s online system to work with drugstore, chain and drugstore sites. grocery store and other third party vendors.

“A lot of retail companies have their own setup and are set up to serve their customers without quotes, which makes it a bit difficult for us to make a transaction as smooth as we would like,” Baker Baker told me.

The governor suggested residents hoping to land a “first-start” appointment at one of the state’s mass vaccination sites, which are currently listing new time slots for the coming week each Thursday.

Baker said more than 55,000 new dates will go live this Thursday at the five locations: Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Fenway Park, Eastfield Mall in Springfield, the DoubleTree Hilton Hotel in Danvers and the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston (this the latter currently serving only Boston residents and will be open to populations statewide by the end of the month).

The governor also noted that the state’s smaller vaccination sites – from pharmacies like Walgreens and CVS, to grocery chains like Stop & Shop and Wegmans, to local hospitals, health clinics and health offices. city ​​- would offer more than 75,000 new appointments each week.

President Joe Biden’s administration recently increased the state’s weekly vaccine shipments to 100,000 doses, and state officials hope to distribute 300,000 injections per week by mid-February.

Yet beyond the enrollment process, some health care experts say Massachusetts should roll out vaccines faster – with COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths still relatively high, although the trend is on the decline. According to federal data, Bay State ranks 37th in per capita vaccinations, having administered 60 percent of the doses it received from the federal government.

Baker, however, defended the pace – noting that unlike most other states, Massachusetts has prioritized populations at high risk of COVID-19 exposure and outbreaks before opening appointments. you to the general public.

“There are some reasons for this unhappiness which have to do with the decisions we made outside the gate, which I make no apologies,” he said on Wednesday.

Rather than immediately allowing anyone over the age of 65 to be vaccinated as the federal government has recommended, the Phase 1 Massachusetts deployment prioritized healthcare workers, nursing homes, first responders and collective care facilities, such as homeless shelters, residential treatment programs, and prisons. The more complex distribution process has also been slowed down by lower than expected vaccine acceptance rates among healthcare workers and nursing home staff.

“I think we did the right thing there,” Baker said Wednesday.

“But I understand that meant other people had to wait,” he added. “And I’m not happy with our situation. I know Lieutenant Governor and Secretary Sudders are not either. But one of the things we’ve tried to do as an administration – and I think we’ve done it right – is to be open to criticism, to accept criticism, to make adjustments and to improve.