LYNN — Public Health Director Michele Desmarais hopes that 700 to 1,000 people will be vaccinated every day at the city’s new vaccination clinic, which opened last Monday at the Lynn Tech Field House.
Approximately 1,500 vaccines were distributed to residents of Lynn and Nahant at Lynn Tech last week. Many of those were 75 and older, a group that became eligible for the vaccine earlier this month under the second phase of the state’s vaccination-rollout plan.
“This is an opportunity to get vaccines out to as many people in the community as we can,” said Mayor Thomas M. McGee. “A lot of work has gone into getting this going and everyone has done a great job setting this up.”
The Lynn location will follow state guidelines and offer vaccines to anyone eligible in the current phase. Vaccinations began at Tech a couple of weeks ago, solely for first responders, and will adapt to servicing those included in each group as Gov. Charlie Baker implements new phases.
Tony Barletta, the town administrator of Nahant, is happy to work on the project with the city of Lynn.
“This has been an unbelievable partnership,” he said. “Distributing and testing at the local level is pertinent to taking the next step in fighting this pandemic. The convenience for our Nahant residents makes a big difference. Being able to come down the street and to get this vaccination quickly and efficiently is going to make a huge difference.”
McGee is working to get mobile vaccinations out in the community because “it is important for people in the community to know that this is an option right here in the city of Lynn.”
Kimberly Eng, chief operating officer at Lynn Community Health Center, appreciates the support of the state, saying that they “have been working with us to secure vaccines, and we’ve secured 2,600 Moderna and about 1,000 Pfizer, so we’re doing really well. The state is really working with us in matching our capacity with the number of vaccines we need.”
With the focus shifting to having people vaccinated, McGee still believes that it is important to note that people can and should still get tested. There are options for free testing in Lynn at the Lynn Community Health Center and Project Beacon, located at the ferry terminal at 398 Blossom St.
The city is focusing on making vaccinations and testing as easy as possible, said McGee, noting that “we are working on pool testing for the schools starting Feb. 22, which is going to be a big step forward.”
McGee said he wants to get people vaccinated as quickly as possible. He wants residents to know that the new opportunity is available and to make an appointment and get vaccinated.
“We want to make sure that everyone that is eligible should get vaccinated and is vaccinated, and we are working on that,” he said.
The partnership with Nahant on vaccinations started with the first responders operation at Lynn Tech.
“It went really smoothly,” said McGee. “Nahant doesn’t have the bandwidth to do it on their own, so we did their first responders and it was a good fit.”
The Lynn Tech location is receiving assistance from Nahant and the Lynn Community Health Center.
“For Nahant, almost a third of our population is 65 and up, so these next two months are going to be significant for us,” said Barletta.
Appointments can be made on the Lynn Community Health Center’s website at https://www.lchcnet.org/covid-19-vaccine-scheduling and on the town of Nahant’s website. Residents who are eligible can also call the Massachusetts 2-1-1 statewide call center Monday to Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. to schedule an appointment at any local vaccination site listed on the state’s website. They can also call the Lynn Community Health Center.
Allysha Dunnigan can be reached at [email protected]
