MA to get 300K doses to combat raging pandemic
By JOSH RESNEK
In or within several weeks, shortly before Christmas or just after, Everett first responders will likely be able to be vaccinated with antivirus vaccines developed during the effort President Donald Trump named, “Operation Ward Speed.”
The state of Massachusetts is expecting to receive 300,000 doses of the first COVID-19 vaccines in the coming weeks.
The big questions remain, how exactly will they be distributed and who will be vaccinated first?
The expectation is that Massachusetts will distribute 300,000 doses of the vaccine as soon as they arrive in cities and towns.
The first doses are expected to be given to “high priority residents.”
This would likely include those Everett residents residing and working in nursing homes, those over 65 with preexisting conditions, and first responders.
In this case, first responders are police and firefighters, EMTs, health care workers, doctors, and nurses, all those with jobs inside hospitals and clinics as well as those working in supermarkets and in CVS and Walgreen type operations.
All those receiving these first doses will require a second dose about 28 days later, according to officials of the Department of Public Health.
Millions and millions of doses will be ultimately be given to the population at large seeking them.
Those vaccinations will be made at hospitals, large chain drug stores like CVS and Walgreens, at larger testing centers like armories wherever they exist, and at testing and vaccination centers to be created with efficiency in mind.
Nearly every health care official and administrator dealing with the virus insist that the vaccines on the way are encouraging, but that the virus itself remains out of control and will remain so for many months to come.
In addition, polls taken nationally reveal the number of those refusing to take the vaccine might be as high as 50%, a situation sure to lengthen the time it takes for the virus to be tamped down among the masses and ultimately wiped out.
Health experts claim the bulk of those wishing to be vaccinated will not be able to do so until at least the end of February or the beginning of March.
New deaths caused by the virus are expected to top another 250,000 by February.