Massachusetts Vaccination Effort Lags Behind Other States: Report

BOSTON — Massachusetts had administered the COVID-19 vaccine to 5.4 percent of its residents as of Friday, a rate that trails New York and the other five New England states.

Nationally, Massachusetts is in the bottom half of states in vaccinating residents, according to a Boston Globe report that ran in Sunday's editions. The newspaper noted that health officials in Massachusetts are organizing the vaccination effort using paper-based methods, while other states have set up websites that allow people to schedule vaccination appointments when they are eligible to get the treatment.

Local health officials told the newspaper they had been told by the Baker administration a similar system for managing the vaccination effort would be in place last falls. "We were told, 'It is coming, it is coming,' but it didn’t come," Ruth Mori, a nurse in Wayland’s health department and president of the Massachusetts Association of Public Health Nurses, told the newspaper.

Massachusetts is currently vaccinating front-line health care workers and first responders. The state is scheduled to start vaccinating the general population next week, when residents over 75 will be eligible to get the treatment.

For more on this story, see the Boston Globe.