Massachusetts Closes In On Goal Of 4.1 Million People Vaccinated Against COVID-19
BOSTON (CBS) – Massachusetts is closing in on Gov. Charlie Baker's goal of 4.1 million people in the state fully vaccinated against COVID-19. The state is less than 12,000 shots away from reaching Baker's goal.
Now, Massachusetts is continuing the process of scaling down from mass vaccination sites and shifting its focus to smaller community sites.
Hynes Convention Center is the next mass vaccination site set to close down, ending operations on Tuesday. Next will be the Reggie Lewis Center in Roxbury, which will administer its final dose on Sunday.
"I don't think we are done yet but we certainly have made excellent progress, we're on our way," said Dr. Paul Sax, Clinical Director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
"We don't know exactly what number we need to hit to achieve something resembling herd immunity and get the results that we want to get," said Dr. Shira Doron of Tufts Medical Center. "What we do know is right now we have the result we want to get in terms of cases and hospitalizations and deaths. It's just been plummeting, plummeting, plummeting."
She said another surge is unlikely. "We just want to protect every individual because the vaccines are so safe and work so well that no one should have to get sick from this virus."
This comes as the push to get more people vaccinated continues amid growing concern over the Delta variant of the virus.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky cautioned over the weekend that could soon become the dominant strain in the United States. Walensky said the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines offer good protection against the variant after the second dose.
"We are going to see this more transmissible variant here. We've already seen it and it does make vaccination all the more important because the vaccines do work against this variant. The Delta variant is more transmissible but does not escape our vaccines, especially the two-dose vaccines," said Sax.
