Estimated COVID-19 Vaccine Wait Time In Worcester County

WORCESTER COUNTY, MA — With the United Kingdom approving a COVID-19 vaccine for use this week and Massachusetts preparing for a rollout as soon as mid-December, the New York Times, the Surgo Foundation and Ariadne Labs have come up with a way to calculate the number of people who will need a vaccine in each state and county — and where Worcester County residents might fit in that line.

For example, an average 40-year-old Worcester County resident with no professional or health-related special circumstances would be in line behind 268.7 million people across the United States, according to the study.

In Massachusetts, the projection would be behind 5.4 million others who are at higher risk, in a state with a population of about 6.7 million. In Worcester County, 658,400 people would be ahead of you in a county with over 840,600 residents.

But those caveats make a difference. The same person with higher risk health conditions would have a ticket around 602,400 in Massachusetts and 64,900 in Worcester County. A healthy first responder would be at 555,200 on the line on the state level and 60,100 in Worcester County.

You can input your specific information on the Times website.

Vaccine Rollout

No matter what place in line you end up in, Massachusetts has been preparing to deliver the COVID-19 vaccine for months.

Here in the Bay State, where a second wave of infections has seen daily positive cases escalate to levels higher than in the spring, officials are planning for "equitable and speedy distribution to Massachusetts communities" as soon as the first shipments arrive, hopefully in mid-December.

"The focus is going to be on the people we are all the most worried about, right, either because of what they do for work or because of their age or because of their physical condition," Gov. Charlie Baker said.

The governor said it probably won't be until the spring that the general population begins to have access to a vaccine, at which point others being developed by AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson could also be available.
"It would probably be Q2 before just Joe Q or Jane Q Citizen would have access to a vaccine," Baker said.

The state plans to submit its final plan for vaccine distribution to the Centers for Disease Control Friday. Baker is not planning to mandate vaccination, he said.