BOSTON (WHDH) - Governor Charlie Baker announced that he will be releasing the vaccine rollout timeline for all remaining Massachusetts residents.
Baker tweeted this announcement Tuesday and wrote, “Every resident will know when they are eligible for a vaccine.”
In the Twitter announcement, the governor went on to thank everyone for making Massachusetts a national leader in the vaccine effort.
Tuesday also marked the first day eligible people began receiving notifications from the state after using the new pre-registration system.
The system that the state developed with Google allows any resident, regardless of their eligibility, to fill out a form online or by phone and then get placed into a virtual waiting room for the next available vaccine appointment.
Steven Cabral cares for his mother and said he signed her up last Friday and is relieved to learn her first dose is coming soon.
“I just really want her to get vaccinated. She’s my number one concern,” he said. “Hopefully I’ll get vaccinated by I can wait until my time is up.”
This comes as the state is starting to see an increase in vaccine shipments.
The federal government will be sending 170,000 doses to Massachusetts — 20,000 more than the week before.
That number also includes 8,000 extra doses of the Johnson & Johnson one shot vaccine.
COVID-19 Response Command Center Communications Director Kate Reilly says this shipment was unexpected because the state was originally informed that they wouldn’t get more Johnson & Johnson vaccines in the state’s allocation until the end of March.
Tuesday, state health officials also confirmed the first case of the highly contagious Brazilian variant of COVID-19 has been identified in a woman from Barnstable County.
DPH says they were notified of her test results from genetic sequencing conducted through the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s national surveillance system.
There is no information available on the woman’s illness or whether she has recently traveled.
(Copyright (c) 2024 Sunbeam Television. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)