FALMOUTH – The Town of Falmouth is urging Governor Charlie Baker to expand the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines on Cape Cod and the Islands.
The town said there are an estimated 27,000 individuals age 75 or over on the Cape—the currently eligible tier of Phase 2 of the state’s vaccine distribution plan—of which 4,807 are Falmouth residents.
Currently, Barnstable County has been told by the state to expect 975 doses per week.
Although some community health centers, pharmacies and grocery stores also have additional vaccines, the county has been unable to determine exactly how many doses are available through these providers.
“The current allocation of vaccines to the Cape Cod region is woefully inadequate and completely unacceptable,” said Falmouth Health Agent Scott McGann in a statement.
“We have the capacity to vaccinate eligible residents locally in a matter of weeks with the county, the towns of Cape Cod, Medical Reserve Corp, VNA, Cape Cod Healthcare, community health enters, pharmacies and grocery stores all ready, willing and able to meet the demand. The state should be allocating at least 5,000 doses per week to this region.”
The Town of Falmouth, Barnstable County and the Medical Reserve Corp has worked together to set up a vaccine clinic at the Barnstable County Fairgrounds that could vaccinate up to 600 individuals per day.
But due to a lack of vaccines, only one has been open for one day and is not scheduled to receive any more first-doses through the end of the month.
The Town of Falmouth said that they would welcome a mass vaccination site on Cape Cod, similar to those set up in Gillette Stadium, Dartmouth and Natick.
Falmouth Town Manager Julian Suso said that he has also charged staff in several departments to set up a hotline to register Falmouth residents who are not able to complete online registration processes on their own.
He said that the town phone line will have as many as 10 employees at once ready to take calls, though the program won’t be able to make appointments without vaccines.
“We are ready to start taking calls but until there is a substantial increase in vaccine availability there is little point in opening up a hotline only to tell our residents that all the appointments are already booked,” said Suso.
The state hotline to make vaccine appointments can be reached at 2-1-1. More information on the vaccine distribution on Cape can be found here.
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