Danvers Mass Vaccination Site Set To Close For Good Wednesday

DANVERS, MA — Five months after opening amid a crunch to get state residents vaccinated against the coronavirus, the Danvers mass vaccination site will close on Wednesday with 4.24 million state residents now fully vaccinated.

When the DoubleTree site opened as one of what would be seven mass vaccination sites in the state, it was part of a plan to get as many residents vaccinated as quickly as possible in the face of oncoming variants and a potential third wave of infections for the region.

While the process to get an appointment caused considerable angst through the winter as the state moved slowly through its tiers of eligible residents and time slots were often scarce as the state's website was riddled with issues and crashes, things smoothed out by March and April when every state resident age 12 or older became eligible for the shot.

By the end of April, supply exceeded demand and the state began focusing its efforts more on hard-to-reach residents and the vaccine-hesitant over larger sites that were becoming increasingly empty on any given day.

Gov. Charlie Baker said on May 3 the mass vaccination sites would slowly wind down operations with Danvers set to close on June 30.

"The Commonwealth's mass vaccination sites have jointly administered over 1.7 million doses and played an instrumental role in getting residents vaccinated," Gov. Baker's office said in a statement earlier this month. "Today, Massachusetts is a nationwide leader in vaccination, with 79 percent of all adult residents and two-thirds of all residents having received at least one dose."

Baker said the decision to close Danvers was based on "the availability of alternatives, which makes a big difference in this regard and the relative level of participation we expected as we move forward."

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(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)