Larger vaccination sites on horizon

Mar. 31—AMESBURY — Thousands of people have received doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at local clinics over the past three weekends, but larger-capacity vaccination events could be coming soon.

Amesbury High School has been the setting for three Merrimack Valley Regional Collaborative weekend vaccination clinics since March 13. Roughly 7,000 people have been vaccinated at the clinics.

City Communications Director Caitlin Thayer said the collaborative — which comprises Amesbury, Georgetown, Groveland, Merrimac, Newbury, Newburyport, Rowley, Salisbury and West Newbury — intends to see that a vast majority of the area population is vaccinated.

Interim Health Director Ken Berkenbush is a leader of the collaborative along with West Newbury Health Agent Paul Sevigny.

Berkenbush said he intends to ensure about 1,800 people are vaccinated Saturday and about 1,500 people Sunday.

"We're going to build it out as we get more vaccine," Berkenbush said. "We have started off a little slow but we're slowly ramping up. We have about 99.9% of the bugs worked out through our process and we will be increasing our output this weekend."

Berkenbush said he expects to begin scaling back the weekend events as the collaborative opens more weekday clinics when the weather gets warmer. The collaborative previously announced it has been looking at potentially holding weekday clinics at the West Newbury Town Hall Annex and the Georgetown Council On Aging.

"We'll also start doing little clinics here and there as more vaccines become available," he said. "That really has been the limiting factor. We still have some elderly folks who don't want to go to the bigger clinics. They would rather go to a smaller, more intimate type of clinic. We hope to start those up either next week or the week after."

Berkenbush said the collaborative has been busy preparing for future mass vaccination clinics but could offer no further details Monday.

"We're about two weeks out before we can announce anything on that," he said.

People eligible for a vaccination are asked to visit mass.gov/covid-19-vaccine, while seniors can contact their Council on Aging for appointment assistance.

While the first two vaccination clinics were primarily staffed by teacher volunteers, a broader swath of the public has become involved more recently, according to Thayer.

"We wanted to prioritize the teachers to get them vaccinated as they head back into school," she said. "Now, we have a lot of community members who just want to be a part of this. We hear from our volunteers that it is just a happy place to be. The people who are coming through are so happy to be there and are very thankful for the volunteers who are there. We couldn't do this without them."

Staff writer Jim Sullivan covers Amesbury and Salisbury for The Daily News. He can be reached via email at jsullivan@newburyportnews.com or by phone at 978-961-3145. Follow him on Twitter @ndnsully.