By JULIE CUNNINGHAM
(Massachusetts) Despite best efforts and reassurances by Governor Charlie Baker, the vaccine roll out in Massachusetts is still struggling. The Vaccine Scheduling Tool on the Massachusetts website reports delays of up to 6,000 according to various individuals struggling on the website. People attempting to schedule a vaccine report even higher wait times and in some cases, being disconnected without the ability to get back on the site. Yesterday, other news outlets have reported robots sucking up all appointments at public Franklin County vaccine locations in the first five minutes, which is why some locations have chosen to become private. A private COVID vaccine location cannot use the Massachusetts Vaccine Scheduler on the Mass.gov website, but in turn does not have to worry about robots sucking up all available appointments.
The Massachusetts Vaccine Reporting Tool reports almost one million first doses have been administered and a total of 1.2 million doses have been administered when second doses are calculated. In the list of locations available for vaccination, only one or two are still listed as having appointments available. That list can be found here. The Greenfield John Zon center is one of the locations still listed as having appointments available. Yesterday, Governor Baker announced that 50,000 new appointments will be available in the Commonwealth through the new Vaccine Equity funding. However, none of the vaccination locations listed for these new appointments were in Franklin County. The closest appointment location listed was Springfield. The Franklin County Regional Collaborative is part of 11 collaboratives working with Governor Baker to streamline the vaccine process. These collaboratives, however, must be available to all eligible residents of the Commonwealth. It is unclear how this new collaborative will play out for Franklin County.