MA's Long-Term Care Residents Begin Vaccinations This Week

MASSACHUSETTS — The state's COVID-19 vaccination rollout takes the next step Monday when residents at long-term care facilities, rest homes and assisted-living facilities begin receiving the vaccine.

Teams from Walgreens and CVS pharmacies will administer the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine to about 173,000 seniors across some 2,000 long-term care facilities beginning this week and continuing over the next three months.

The residents will be the second group to receive mass vaccinations under the first phase of the state's vaccination plan. Front-line health care workers got their first doses two weeks ago, while first responders could start being vaccinated as early as mid-January. See the vaccination rollout plan here.

Everyone who gets a vaccine will need a second dose about four weeks after the first.

COVID-19 has been especially deadly for seniors, with the contagious virus finding little resistance in ripping through long-term care facilities early in the pandemic.

As of Dec. 22, only 715 of the 35,618 vaccine doses administered in Massachusetts went to people 70 or older. There had been 146,675 doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines shipped to Massachusetts at that time.