Everyone age 60 to 64 and many who work in public are now eligible for Covid vaccinations, including restaurant, retail, grocery, public works, transportation, and sanitation workers.
There are several options for getting vaccine appointments. The state’s pre-registration site, vaccinesignup.mass.gov, will contact registered persons when an appointment is available at one of the state’s seven mass vaccination sites. But none is on Cape Cod.
Barnstable County announces vaccine clinics on Thursdays. To receive email notification, go to barnstablecountyhealth.org and click on “community tips” for the sign-up link.
Outer Cape Health Services can be an avenue, as it receives allocations from the state. Newly eligible patients can contact their primary care provider by email, or they can call — expect to spend time on hold. Gerry Desautels of OCHS said, “For newly eligible groups in the coming weeks, the large-scale vaccination sites will be a good option.”
The state now publishes a weekly report on vaccination totals by town. As of March 18, 1,400 people in Provincetown, 845 people in Truro, 1,168 people in Wellfleet, and 2,033 people in Eastham had received at least one dose of Covid vaccine.
Using the state’s estimated population for the four towns, this represents 46 percent of the outermost towns’ 11,914 residents. There is reason to believe, however, that population estimates by the state Dept. of Public Health undercount those living here.
The state DPH estimates the population of Provincetown at 2,583, for example, and the town had 2,940 registered voters in 2019.
Because these population numbers vary, some interesting details emerge in the state’s vaccination report: 363 Provincetown residents over age 75 have been vaccinated, for instance, even though only 278 residents over age 75 were estimated to exist. The state reports this data as a “greater than 95 percent vaccination rate.” —Paul Benson
