The website woes many Massachusetts residents face trying to secure a COVID-19 vaccine appointment could be mitigated by a boost in vaccine supply, Gov. Charlie Baker said Monday.
During his morning press conference, Baker said both supply and a focus on scale could help improve the state’s appointment-booking website, which has at times crashed or returned lengthy wait times to residents seeking the potentially life-saving immunization.
“I think the big thing associated with the website is twofold,” Baker said. “Number one, to have more vaccine, so that fewer people have to go on the site and find out they’re number 68,455 in line. That will be a function, hopefully, of having additional capacity along the way.”
The Baker administration has often cited supply from the federal government as a major constraint around much of its vaccine rollout efforts.
Baker’s second website focus, he said, is working with software vendors that can handle large-scale demand, adding that “just because somebody has functionality doesn’t mean we necessarily believe it can work or scale for the size of the populations that we’re looking to serve.”
“If we think certain things can enhance the performance of our site, we’re going to pursue them, but they’ve got to be able to deal with really big numbers and deal with really big numbers in a really big hurry,” Baker said
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