Natick Vaccine Supersite Aims To Quintuple Doses By March

NATICK, MA — Gov. Charlie Baker toured a new coronavirus vaccine supersite in a former Sears store at the Natick Mall on Wednesday, and officials are hopeful the site's capacity can increase by a factor of five in the coming days.

The Natick supersite opened on Monday offering about 100 doses per day, less than the 500 officials initially projected. Bill Haas, an executive with Labcorp, the company running the Natick Mall site, said the 500 dose-per-day rate could begin by next week. Labcorp has a goal of 5,000 doses per-day by April.

However, Baker tempered expectations about a major boost in vaccinations soon. He said the state would add 50,000 new appointments by 8 a.m. Thursday, which is the same number the state has been adding each week recently.

Massachusetts has been receiving about 130,000 vaccine doses per week from the federal government. Baker pointed to two recent developments that could mean a boost in that figure in the coming weeks.

On Tuesday, Pfizer and Moderna pledged to provide about 220 million doses to the federal government by the end of March. The Food and Drug Administration also said Wednesday the Johnson and Johnson version of the vaccine is safe and effective.

"As we've said before, we can only vaccinate based on the number of vaccinations we get from the feds," Baker said.

Last Thursday, the state's vaccine appointment website crashed under the strain of thousands of visitors. Baker said the site would be equipped with a "digital waiting room" to handle overflow. The state also announced 11 new regional vaccine collaborations with different hospitals and communities across the state. Some of those sites, like one at Worcester State University, were previously made public.

Massachusetts has given out about 1 million vaccine doses so far, Baker said. That includes about 300,000 residents over age 75, which accounts for about 60 percent of that population in the state.