A sign advertised Marlborough’s Marriott Hotel COVID-19 vaccination clinic before that site was set to close on June 30.
By Stuart Foster, Contributing Writer
MARLBOROUGH – Mayor Arthur Vigeant detailed the next steps of Marlborough’s vaccination effort June 21, as the city got set for the closure of Marlborough Hospital’s large-scale immunization clinic at the Marriott Hotel in town.
As the Marriott clinic was set to close on June 30, the mayor noted in his COVID-19 update to the City Council that remaining unvaccinated residents will be able to receive their vaccines at area pharmacies. Those facilities will even administer second doses to individuals who received their first shot at the Marriott.
“They can go to Walgreens, CVS, Bouvier’s Pharmacy and also Hannaford, and we’ll be getting some flyers out to let people know about that in different languages,” Vigeant said.
In general, Vigeant said the city’s COVID-19 vaccination and case rate is continuing to wind down.
Vigeant said that there were six active cases of COVID-19 in Marlborough as of the date of his presentation.
“It is good news, and we’ve hovered around five or six now for a couple of weeks,” Vigeant said.
Vigeant added that, in the week before his comments, Marlborough Hospital administered 965 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, with 742 of those doses going to Marlborough residents through their clinic at the Marriott Hotel. Additionally, he said that the hospital returned to the city’s schools to administer a second dose to many local students.
Vigeant said that just under 50 percent of Marlborough’s population between the ages of 12 and 19 had received their full vaccinations. That marks an increase from 22 percent on the date of Vigeant’s last COVID-19 update June 7.
Meanwhile, Marlborough Hospital will continue to administer COVID-19 tests after June 30. Vigeant said the hospital, which does tests on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday from 9:00 a.m. to noon, is currently averaging about 50 to 70 tests a day, mostly from people preparing for or returning from travel.
“Their contract runs through September 30 of this year, so they will be doing testing up there,” Vigeant said.
Vigeant said that 57 percent of Marlborough residents are fully vaccinated, with 67 percent having received at least one dose. He said that he expects the numbers to plateau around the 70 percent mark, as some people will choose not to take the vaccine.
“There’s going to be a lot of people that say ‘I just don’t feel like I need it,’ which is their prerogative, and that’s fine,” he told the City Council June 7.
