Baker Defends COVID Vaccine Timeline For Massachusetts: 'I Think The Schedule We've Got In Place Is The Right One'
BOSTON (CBS) -- Starting Friday, all New Hampshire residents 16 and older will be able to sign up for a COVID vaccine. And next week, all adults in New York will become eligible. In Massachusetts, however, it'll take a little longer for the general public to reach eligibility, and Gov. Charlie Baker indicated Tuesday that he has no intention of changing the timeline.
Massachusetts residents 55 years and older and anyone with one qualifying medical condition will become eligible April 5. Everyone else will be able to sign up starting April 19.
When Can I Get Vaccinated? Full COVID Vaccination Schedule For Massachusetts
"I think the schedule we've got in place is the right one," Baker said during a news conference at the Hynes Convention Center mass vaccination site. "We've tried to make sure that people who are eligible by these phases have an opportunity to actually get vaccinated before we go to the next phase. And usually that's about a two week window between when we first opened one and we moved to another."
President Joe Biden said Monday that 90% of Americans would become eligible for the vaccine on April 19.
"I'm glad to see that President Biden picked our date, April 19, as the date on which 90 percent of the population would be eligible to get vaccinated," Baker said. "I thought that was pretty cool."
As of Monday, Massachusetts has administered over 3.4 million vaccine doses and more than 1.2 million people are now fully vaccinated.
Visit Mass.Gov/CovidVaccine to book an appointment or call the hotline at 211.
