BOSTON (WHDH) - Health officials are eyeing historic Fenway Park as the location for another mass COVID-19 vaccination site — making it the second sports arena to join the fight against the virus.
Boston’s Chief of Health and Human Services Marty Martinez made the announcement during a coronavirus press conference on Thursday alongside Mayor Martin J. Walsh.
“We are committed to ensuring that sites are available and accessible in all neighbors to make sure folks can get vaccinated,” Martinez said.
Gillette Stadium in Foxborough has already been transformed into a mass vaccination site to inoculate more than 5,000 people per day. Staffers were given their first doses on Thursday.
First responders and those living and working at group care facilities will begin getting inoculated on Monday.
Martinez said the Reggie Lewis Center by Roxbury Community College may also serve as a vaccination site.
“It is incredibly complicated,” he said. “We need 75 to 80 percent of folks to get vaccinated. That’s the work we are trying to put together right now.”
Secretary of State Bill Galvin is suggesting that polling places also be used to inoculate the public in cities and towns holding elections in the spring.
“Many of our communities will be holding elections in March, April, and May,” he said. “It seems we should be testing out vaccinating people at the polls.”
Galvin said he is waiting on a response from the governor.
Dr. Swannie Jett who sits on the Massachusetts Public Health Board slammed the state and Governor Baker for what he believes is a bungled vaccine rollout.
“The process and planning has been very lacking compared to what I have seen in other states,” he said.
Jett is also the Brookline Health Commissioner and said the local health departments should take the lead in getting the public vaccinated.
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