DPH: More than half a million Mass residents are fully-vaccinated against COVID-19 msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
More than 1 million Massachusetts residents have received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. In its daily vaccine data report, the DPH said Saturday that 1,000,734 people in the Bay State have received at least one dose of the vaccine. The data is gathered from the Massachusetts Immunization Information System at midnight the night before. Sign up for our Newsletters According to.
Vaccine rollout earmarks additional doses for hard-hit Mass. communities. But delivering on that could be a challenge
By Deanna Pan Globe Staff,Updated December 22, 2020, 11:30 a.m.
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A walk-in COVID-19 testing tent set up outside the Brockton Neighborhood Health Center in April.Barry Chin/Globe Staff
When Governor Charlie Baker announced a sweeping plan to dispense millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Massachusetts residents, he pledged a commitment to equitable distribution. That includes reserving 20 percent of the stateâs doses as bonus allocations for hard-hit communities in recognition of the disproportionate impact the virus has had on people of color.
In a week when the first COVID-19 vaccinations were administered in Massachusetts to front-line health care workers, there are questions over how the state plans to distribute extra doses of the vaccine to communities of color that have been battered by the pandemic.
Framingham and Milford are among those communities, as each has a sizable minority population that is experiencing skyrocketing COVID-19 infection rates.
Last week, Gov. Charlie Baker’s COVID-19 Vaccine Advisory Group announced plans for vaccine distribution, including an extra 20% supply to communities that suffered a disproportionate impact during the pandemic.
But there are questions about that extra supply, including how will it be calculated and who will get it.
Nicholas Capote dispenses the first Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine doses at Tufts Medical Center from a vial into a syringe. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)
Health care workers administered the first COVID-19 vaccines in Massachusetts to their own on Tuesday. Doctors, nurses, cleaning staff and others stationed in COVID units, emergency rooms or other front-line positions received the injection after workers unpacked the frozen vaccine vials in a puff of cold mist.
The arrival of the vaccine, developed in record time by Pfizer and BioNTech, a German company with U.S. headquarters in Cambridge, has been met with jubilation from health experts. The beginning of these injections, they say, marks a big step toward ending the pandemic.