Mass vaccination site opens Monday inside Natick Mall

NATICK, Mass. — The state’s newest mass vaccination site opens Monday morning at the Natick Mall.

The Moderna vaccine will be given inside the former Sears on the main level.

The site is being managed by LabCorp and is open to all eligible Massachusetts residents. The site will be open Monday through Friday.

This week during the soft launch, organizers plan to vaccinate 100 people per day. In the coming weeks, they hope to increase to 5,000 shots per day.

“We’re gonna be here as long as necessary,” said Heather Provino, of LabCorp. “We’ve talked to the state and as long as they need people to vaccinate, we’ll be here. We’ve committed for the long haul.”

Provino said they’ve been learning from the other mass vaccination sites that opened before the Natick Mall location.

“We’ve been carefully watching other mass vaccination sites and trying to learn some lessons from them,” said Provino.

“One thing that we did see that was vitally important is to try to get people inside as much as possible. So you’ll see throughout the set up here, we’ve got plenty of room for folks to be out of the weather and out of the elements, but still socially distant waiting their turn for their vaccination.”

This latest mass vaccination site opens as Gov. Charlie Baker announced the state will start prioritizing the larger vaccine sites. He argues it’s the fastest way to get the most people vaccinated.

Starting March 1, Baker said Massachusetts will stop giving vaccine doses to smaller clinics run by individual cities and towns.

Mass vaccination sites are also located at Fenway Park, Gillette Stadium, the DoubleTree hotel in Danvers, and the Eastfield Mall in Springfield.

There are also large vaccine sites at the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston and at Worcester State University.

Appointments are fully booked for this week, but new time slots are added every Thursday.

As of Sunday, almost 15% of Massachusetts residents had received at least their first dose of a vaccine and 5.6% had been fully vaccinated, according to the state’s COVID Command Center.

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