GOV. CHARLIE BAKER said on Wednesday that the state has the capacity to administer 2 million inoculations a month, but the federal government and d vaccine manufacturers are providing only half that amount.
At a press conference at a West Bridgewater manufacturer of hospital-grade masks, Baker said the state could easily administer 1 million doses a month and could probably do 2 million. State officials say they only have 250,000 doses available to administer next week, and only 155,000 of those are first doses. That pace, which is not expected to change for the rest of March, would lead to 1 million total doses over a month.
The governor said the lack of vaccine supply and concerns about new variants of the coronavirus are the two key factors he would consider in deciding whether the state of emergency he declared exactly a year ago could be lifted.
Baker indicated he is growing frustrated with the promises coming from manufacturers and Washington officials. “We heard in December that we would have more supply than we had demand by February. And then we heard in January that we would have more supply than we would have demand by March. Then we heard Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer and Moderna make commitments to Congress about where they were going to be in March and we’re basically being told that between now and the end of March we shouldn’t expect any additional supply and we will in April have more supply than we have demand. If we get to that point, and I really hope we do, the ability for us to move really quickly to vaccinate huge proportions of the remaining population in Massachusetts is extremely high.”
Baker said the state has administered 2.2 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine so far and 700,000 people are fully vaccinated.
He has acknowledged problems with the website used to make appointments for vaccinations, but he repeated again and again that the real problem is supply. And on Wednesday he specifically targeted the three drug manufacturers for not meeting their deadlines and living up to their promises.
The governor also spelled out where first and second vaccine doses will be going next week in the administration pipeline. He said 83,000 will go to the seven mass vaccination websites, 79,000 to public and private hospital providers, 38,000 to the 12 regional collaboratives, 25,000 to community health centers, and 25,000 to local boards of health. He said another 95,000 first and second doses have been allocated by the federal government directly to retail pharmacies and 19,000 Johnson & Johnson doses to health centers.