State praises Springfield's COVID-19 vaccination plan (WGGB)
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SPRINGFIELD, MA (WGGB/WSHM) -- The Baker administration said new plans are in the works to allocate vaccines specifically to residents in the city of Springfield for neighborhood vaccination sites.
The Baker-Polito administration had a meeting with the Springfield COVID-19 Task Force earlier this week to go over their proposal to bring vaccines to the community.
The administration said new plans are in the works to allocate vaccines specifically to residents in the city of Springfield for neighborhood vaccination sites.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Marylou Sudders said state officials are working to make this happen for the city.
"We're reaching out through Curative to the city about opportunities to partner together, and the city, all the disproportionally impacted communities, get an allocation separate from all other allocations of vaccine - from 400 up to 1,000. The city of Boston gets 1,000 because it's the largest city, to start to plan how they want to use the vaccines," she explained.
Jesse Lederman, a city councilor and member of the Springfield COVID-19 Task Force, told Western Mass News the proposal sent to the state focused on weekly access to doses of the vaccine, hoping for at least 2,000 weekly to make neighborhood vaccination sites a reality.
"It’s important for us to have localized distribution of the vaccine despite the fact that a super vaccination site cited in Springfield that site remains inaccessible to many residents across the city whether because of transportation or really because of the capacity that exists in the system," Lederman said. "We want to make sure that every resident who wants a vaccine in the city of Springfield can get one and that every neighborhood has access to a vaccination site."
He added that Springfield officials are having a meeting on Tuesday to go over more plans, but for now, they are thrilled the state is in support of their proposal.
