2 New State-Run Coronavirus Vaccine Sites Coming To Rhode Island

PROVIDENCE, RI — The number of high-volume coronavirus vaccine sites run by the Rhode Island Department of Health is set to double in the coming weeks, state health officials announced Thursday. Two new sites are set to open soon, with a fifth currently in the planning stages.

The new sites will be located in Middletown and Woonsocket. The Middletown site will be in the space previously occupied by Benny's on West Main Road, while Woonsocket will be in the former Sears building on Diamond Hill Road.

Rhode Islanders will be able to schedule appointments for these sites the same ways as the currently operational sites in Cranston and Providence: online at vaccinateRI.com or, for those without internet access, by calling 844-930-1779. It's unclear when exactly these new sites will become operational.

Incoming Gov. Dan McKee said that a fifth state-run vaccine site is currently in the planning stages.

"We are building out capacity to meet the demand when the vaccine doses increase," McKee said during Thursday's weekly news conference.

McKee said he is also working to get more people eligible to administer the vaccine, such as EMTs, to make sure that there are enough people to surge the effort once more vaccine doses become available from the federal government.

Dr. Nicole Alexander-Scott, the director of the Department of Health, said she is very pleased with the speed with which the state has accelerated its vaccination effort in the past weeks. So far, approximately 40,000 vaccine appointments are on the book at state-run sites through early March, she said, and over 20,000 vaccine doses have been administered to residents in just the past week. Compared to the weekly rate in January, the vaccine administration rate increased 130 percent in the past week, she said.

"Our work isn't done. We have hundreds of thousands more doses to administer," Alexander-Scott said. "[But] we've come a long way in a short time."

It's also likely that Johnson and Johnson vaccines will be available to Rhode Islanders in the coming weeks, with the company's vaccine poised to gain approval from the Food and Drug Administration in the coming days. If all goes well, about 9,000 of these vaccines could arrive in the state within about two weeks, Alexander-Scott said.

The doctor said that Rhode Islanders should not be concerned about the efficacy of this single-shot vaccine, which, while not as high as the two-dose Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, is still safe and effective at preventing COVID-19 related hospitalizations and fatalities.

"Definitely focus on getting vaccinated, period," Alexander-Scott said, saying that she and her health care colleagues are "very confident" that the vaccines are safe and effective.

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