Mass vaccination sites ready to ramp up appointments for next eligible group

BOSTON — Mass vaccination sites like Fenway Park and Gillette Stadium are ready to ramp up vaccine appointments for the next eligible group.

Between the two sites there will be about 50,000 new appointments available online starting Thursday.

“We already have supply plans, availability plans, operations, everything else has been scheduled to scale up in that way, so there’s really no big difference for us in terms of this new group coming to the operation,” said Rodrigo Martinez, chief marketing director at CIC Health.

CIC Health helps facilitate the vaccine distribution at Fenway and Gillette.

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Martinez said they hope to increase the number of vaccines given a day to about 6,000 at Gillette and more than 1,250 at Fenway.

“The big message we got from the public was vaccinate, vaccinate and there is no question the fastest way to do this is with high volume sites,” said Gov. Charlie Baker.

Baker said the state gives priority to these large scale sites for vaccine supply since it’s the fastest way to get the most people vaccinated.

Martinez said right now it takes between three and a half to five minutes for each vaccination.

“At the upper limit, we calculate every six minutes including wiping the chair, every six minutes we can have one person in, how many vaccination stations do we have at the floor, how many do we have open for 10 hours,” said Martinez.

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He said they’re also trying new models at one section at Gillette to see if there’s an even better way to get more people vaccinated at a time.

“Where the guests sit down and it’s the vaccinators that move from one row to another to another, administer the vaccine, move to the next row, administer the vaccine, move to the next row, so we’re trying all the different combinations to be as effective as possible,” said Martinez.

Martinez said 16- and 17- year-olds who have two medical conditions can now get the vaccine, but they’re only approved to get the Pfizer vaccine. Fenway Park offers the Pfizer vaccine, but Gillette Stadium only has the Moderna vaccine, which is not approved for those under 18.

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