FOXBOROUGH, MASS. (WHDH) – Massachusetts’ first mass COVID-19 vaccination site will be opening at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro later this week, Gov. Charlie Baker announced Tuesday.
“Special thanks to all the folks at Gillette Stadium and to the Kraft family for being the first mass vaccination site out of the gate,” Baker said during a news conference at the Worcester Senior Center.
The first doses at the stadium will be given to site staffers on Thursday and first responders will be able to get vaccinated starting on Monday, Baker said.
Gillette will start out by providing 300 vaccines per day but it will eventually have the capacity to administer more than 5,000 doses per day and “potentially much bigger numbers than that over time,” according to Baker.
Eligible vaccine recipients will be able to schedule appointments on the state’s COVID vaccine website and CIC Health’s website.
CIC Health, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Fallon Ambulance will all take part in overseeing various duties at the vaccination site.
“These vaccines are safe and effective, and millions of doctors, nurses, and health care workers are getting vaccinated across our country,” Baker said. “This is a huge step forward in our fight and we’re progressing through our vaccine plan like we hoped we would.”
Baker noted that the state will start administering vaccines to the congregate care community in the coming days.
“This is obviously a complicated process and as we’ve said before, the vaccines can’t get here fast enough,” Baker said. “The big hope on the horizon is arrival of more vaccines and the ability to distribute them, and make them available to people.”
As of Sunday, 470,000 doses of the vaccine had been distributed to the Bay State, but just 47 percent of the doses had been administered. Baker did point out that there is a lag in reporting from vaccination sites.
Police officers, firefighters, and EMTs started getting vaccinations on Monday.
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