1.7 million additional Massachusetts residents will become eligible Monday to receive the vaccine in the commonwealth.
After months of waiting, anyone over the age of sixteen will be able to make an appointment to get the coronavirus vaccine in Massachusetts starting Monday.
The Bay State is one of the last states to make shots available to the general adult population.
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People like Andrew Sagerian, of Boston, are ready to finally get vaccinated against COVID-19.
“I’ll just kind of be able to get back to normal,” Sagerian said. "Most of my family’s already vaccinated, which has been nice just knowing that they’re already vaccinated. But now I can go out and do things with them.”
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Sagerian and 1.7 million additional Massachusetts residents will become eligible Monday to receive the vaccine in the commonwealth.
“I want to get my vaccine,” Tyngsboro resident Mackenzie Ryan said.
“We’re going to almost be at a normal summer; we’re getting there,” Bostonian Allison Leacu said.
The expanded elibigility will make a big different for a lot of people including those who have already gotten vaccinated.
“I’m really excited for the rest of my friends and family to get eligible,” Boston resident Tina Russell said.
Russell says only as more people get vaccinated will life at least start to feel normal again.
“I think that’ll really open up my world again because being the only person vaccinated I still can’t do anything, like socially,” she said.
All residents can preregister to book an appointment at a mass vaccination sites, as well as some regional collaborative sites, at mass.gov/COVIDVaccine.
The state's online vaccine sign-up tool went live last month, changing the sign-up process for appointments at the large-scale sites. Preregistered residents will be added to a waiting list where they'll receive weekly status updates and be notified when an appointment becomes available.
Preregistration only takes a couple of minutes at vaccinesignup.mass.gov to get on a waiting list for an appointment at one of the large-scale sites.
Once an appointment opens up, residents will be notified via email, phone or text, based on their preference. The notification will include a link with a special code needed to schedule the appointment, which expires after one day.
The appointment must be accepted within 24 hours, otherwise the resident will be sent back into the queue and must wait for another appointment. Depending on supply, it could take weeks for people to be notified that an appointment is available at a mass vaccination site.
Residents can opt out of their preregistration at any time if they get an appointment elsewhere.
Appointments at other regional and local sites and pharmacies can be found at https://vaxfinder.mass.gov/
Residents can also go directly to the websites of Walgreens, CVS and Walmart to find open slots.
Over the weekend, Massachusetts hit the milestone of having over 2 million residents fully vaccinated. Over 3 million first doses have been administered.
Gov. Charlie Baker has said he expects "minimal disruption" to vaccine distribution in Massachusetts despite Tuesday's decision to pause the use of Johnson & Johnson vaccine while the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration further investigate blood clots in six women that occurred in the days after receiving the J&J vaccine.
Baker said the Johnson & Johnson doses make up only a small portion of the state's vaccine supply, so he doesn't expect the pause to have a major impact in the Bay State.
