Worcester med students to learn to administer vaccines ahead of Monday rollout

WORCESTER, Mass. — It’s going to be a busy weekend in Worcester as more than 100 medical students learn how to vaccinate patients before Monday’s big rollout.

On Saturday morning, roughly 150 UMass Medical students will be trained on how to administer the vaccine to first responders.

“We are very excited about this vaccination project taking off,” said Dr. Michael Hirsh, the city’s health director, during a news conference.

Worcester city leaders say the training will be held at the Senior Center and lead by a group of graduate nursing students who made the vaccination training their project for the year.

After the training, which will be held from 9 a.m. to noon, the city’s vaccination team is set to prepare the building to open its doors for Monday morning.

Come Monday, first responders in Worcester and those in their health alliance, comprised of six neighboring towns, will have access to vaccinations.

Those neighboring towns include:

• Grafton
• Millbury
• Shrewsbury
• Leicester
• Holden
• West Boylston

“Not all of the students are going to be doing vaccinations,” explained Dr. Hirsh. “Some are going to be doing other roles like registration and observation because everybody who gets vaccinated has to be observed for another 15 minutes after their vaccination.”

On Friday, Worcester City Manager Edward Augustus Jr. announced that all municipal buildings in the city would be closed for an extended two weeks, until January 25.

Originally, they were set to open back up on Monday.

Augustus Jr. cited the high number of COVID-19 infections as the reason for the delay.

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