BOSTON — And now, comes the hard part -- of the Covid-19 vaccination process, that is. The ‘eager uptakers’ -- those 75 and older, health care workers and first responders -- so dominated the first months of the immunization campaign that some literally lost sleep trying to book an appointment.
Now, the needle appears to be swinging in the other direction. Two weeks ago, Boston’s Public Health Commission held a vaccination clinic at White Stadium in Franklin Park.
“I think we vaccinated over 800 people, said Marty Martinez, the city’s Health and Human Services chief.
Two weeks later, he said, they did it again -- same place -- but this time with the help of two corporate sponsors, the Boston Celtics and Wal-Mart. “And we were open sort of the same amount of hours and I think we only vaccinated about 300 people,” Martinez said.
Since vaccination began in Boston in late December, most weeks have seen a rise in the number of residents getting a first dose. But between April 13 and April 20, that number fell by 18 percent. And the number fully vaccinated dropped by 19 percent.
At the moment, Boston’s overall vaccination rate is 55 percent, with 22 percent of the eligible population partially vaccinated; 33 percent fully vaccinated.
“We know there’s a lot of legwork to be done,” Martinez said. “And we want to do everything we can to get up to that 70 to 75% rate of people getting vaccinated.”
To that end, the city has been opening walk-in clinics in various neighborhood locations. On Thursday, UMass-Boston, the Gallivan Community Center in Mattapan and the Roxbury YMCA served as vaccination sites.
“Guests that want to get vaccinated can simply walk up, they can register and we’ll vaccinate them right on the spot,” said Kevin Turner of Cataldo Ambulance, one of the sponsors of the UMass-Boston site. “I have 500 doses for today. So once I get to 500, we’ll stop.”
Turner said the Roxbury YMCA similarly had 500 doses -- not a lot, when compared with the state’s megasites. But it’s the placement that counts, said Martinez.
“You got to really bring things to the community,” he said. “We’re bringing clinics, second dose clinics, starting tomorrow, to a church in East Boston, to a worker’s center in Allston. To locations that most folks won’t know. But people who go to those locations do know.”
The point is, those who show up to these obscure sites might otherwise eschew vaccination.
“And so we just got to keep doing more of that,” Martinez said. “You know I think in our mobile doses over about the course of 12 days we did 3,600 vaccinations. You can do 3,600 vaccinations at Hynes in one day. But that’s the way that you’re really gonna have to keep the progress going. And that’s a slow grind. But we’re prepared to do it.”
And Martinez said they will likely have to keep doing it in Boston well into the summer months.
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