About 2,500 additional COVID-19 vaccine or booster shot appointments will open up next week when state-sponsored sites in Lynn, Taunton and Boston's Roxbury and Fenway neighborhoods open, the Baker administration announced Tuesday.
Vaccine and booster clinics will launch next Wednesday, Jan. 5, at the Melnea Cass Recreation Complex in Roxbury and at North Shore Community College's Modular Building in Lynn, each capable of administering 400 shots a day. On Jan. 6, Fenway Park will reopen as a vaccine/booster site with the capacity to administer 1,300 shots each day and a new clinic at 2005 Bay Street in Taunton will go live with the ability to give 400 shots a day.
Gov. Charlie Baker said earlier this month that the most significant challenge to booster clinics is finding available staff, which is "part of the reason why some of this might happen a little bit after the holidays as opposed to before." Baker's administration has been pushing vaccinations and boosters as the best defenses against serious illness from the surging omicron variant.
The four new sites opening next week are in addition to a vaccine and booster clinic already open at the Whittier Street Health Center in Roxbury, the Executive Office of Health and Human Services said in its announcement. That clinic has 500 doses available each day.
Appointments at all five locations are available to book now through vaxfinder.mass.gov, the administration said, and walk-ins will be accepted at all locations other than the Taunton site. All locations will offer the primary vaccine series for people ages 5 and older as well as booster doses. Language translation services will be available at all locations.
On Monday, Baker was among a bipartisan group of governors on a call with President Joe Biden and administration officials like Dr. Anthony Fauci and U.S. Centers for Disease Control Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, his office confirmed. The White House said the group discussed "the latest science on the omicron variant, the use and distribution of COVID-19 treatments, expanding federal partnerships and resources on testing, and keeping the Nation's schools open."
