As of Tuesday, 78,643 Massachusetts residents — mostly health care workers on the front lines — had received their coronavirus vaccines and the state had received 285,050 of the 300,000 shots anticipated before the year’s end, according to state health data.<\/b>
\nAt last count,78,643 Massachusetts residents \u2014 mostly health care workers on the front lines \u2014 had received their coronavirus vaccines and the state had received 285,050 of the 300,000 shots anticipated before the year\u2019s end, according to state health data dated Tuesday. Last week,32,590 people got their shots \u2014 down from the 46,052 vaccinated the first week, according to the state\u2019s weekly coronavirus vaccine dashboard released Thursday. Health officials said the lower numbers are due to the Christmas holiday. Of those vaccinated since Dec.15,92% \u2014 or 72,309 \u2014 are hospital workers. Doctors, nurses and attendants are first in line for shots under a three-phase vaccine distribution plan that prioritizes people based on their risk of exposure. The remaining doses have been administered at other employee health settings such as neighborhood clinics and doctor\u2019s offices. At a press conference on Wednesday Worcester Medical Director Dr. Michael Hirsh said of getting his vaccine, \u201cI finally felt like I was being given a coat of armor or some Kevlar or something that was going to protect me for the first time.\u201d On Monday, CVS Health began to administer COVID-19 vaccines at 1,995 skilled nursing and assisted living facilities in Massachusetts, where residents have been hard hit by the pandemic, but none of those numbers were reflected data released in Thursday\u2019s dashboard. The dashboard also revealed that 285,050 total cumulative doses have been shipped to providers in Massachusetts at of 11:59 p.m. Tuesday \u2014 shy of the 300,000 doses promised to the state by the year\u2019s end. That breaks down to 138,450 Pfizer doses and 146,600 Moderna doses. The most vaccine doses have been shipped to Suffolk County (126,800), followed by Middlesex County (38,125), Worcester County (30,200), and Hampden County (16,600). The 70-plus age group has received 2% of the vaccine doses (1,673); the 50-69 age group has received 36% of the doses (28,501); the 30-49 age group has received 44% of the doses (34,326); the 20-29 age group has received 18% of the doses (13,945); and the under-20 age group has received less than 1% of the doses (198). Lisa Kashinsky contributed to this report.<\/p>\n