More than a year into the pandemic, every adult in Massachusetts now has a date certain when they will become eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.
Gov. Charlie Baker cautioned as he unveiled the timeline Wednesday that it could still take several weeks of eligibility to secure a vaccine appointment, but the April 19 target to open up the process to all adults still marks a significant milestone.
In a social media post, Haverhill Mayor James J. Fiorentini urged residents who are already eligible to receive the vaccine to not delay making appointments. “…Once the floodgates open, it will be much more difficult to get vaccinated. My advice: if you are eligible now, get vaccinated now,” the mayor said.
In the meantime, Massachusetts is approaching but has yet to cross the point of 1 million residents fully vaccinated against the highly infectious virus. About 972,000 Bay Staters had reached that point by Wednesday, when Baker said he expected to hit the million mark within the next 24 hours.
Public health metrics continued their relatively flat trajectory of recent weeks. The Department of Public Health confirmed 1,640 more infections on Wednesday, pushing the cumulative count to 572,278 since the crisis began more than a year ago.