Hours after opening appointment slots at Springfield’s Eastfield Mall for those eligible for their coronavirus vaccine, slots were already filled through early next week.
State Sen. Eric Lesser, whose district includes Springfield, highlighted Wednesday how quickly the appointments were booked.
Current status of the Springfield vaccine site. 2 slots available between now and Feb 2,” Lesser tweeted. “It’s a city of 160,000 people. @MassGovernor, this process is not going well.”
At the start of the day, there were 800 to over 900 appointments available daily.
Health care workers, first responders and others in Phase 1 could all book appointments as early as Jan. 29, the same day the Eastfield Mall will serve as Western Massachusetts’ first mass vaccination site.
Individuals 75 years and older were also able to schedule vaccines at the Springfield mall via the Curative platform, but couldn’t book appointments until Feb. 1 as they are the first priority group in the plan’s second phase.
The lack of available vaccines has been a concern in the state.
When asked by reporters about the concerns regarding availability Wednesday, Baker asked for patience and said to be prepared to check for appointments multiple times. Appointments will be added on a rolling basis, according to state health officials.
He noted that about 40,000 first responders still need to be vaccinated as well as other workers slated for priority in Phase 1. There are about a million seniors aged 75 and older in Massachusetts, Baker said.
“If you have a million people who are eligible and you have only received a million doses since this started in December, you are going to be constrained by supply,” he said.
As of this week, Massachusetts plans to have 103 publicly available vaccination sites to allow the state to have capacity to administer 242,000 doses of the vaccine each week. Other location sites include Gillette Stadium and Fenway Park.
Baker said Wednesday he anticipates Massachusetts administering 300,000 doses each week by mid-February.
He announced Wednesday that the Biden-Harris administration will increase the amount of COVID vaccines made available to Massachusetts in coming weeks.
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