GLOUCESTER, Mass. (AP) — Massachusetts teachers will be eligible to register for a coronavirus vaccine starting March 11, Gov. Charlie Baker said Wednesday.

The Republican governor’s announcement at a Gloucester elementary school came a day after President Joe Biden urged states to prioritize vaccinations for teachers, and the same day retail pharmacy locations that had been offering vaccinations announced that they would start accepting signups from teachers.

“In an effort to streamline our process and to limit the amount of confusion between federal eligibility guidelines and state eligibility guidelines and to coordinate with the feds, we are announcing that educators, early educators and school staff will be eligible to start signing up for vaccine appointments starting on March 11,” Baker said.

Baker said the state’s move would make about 400,000 educators, child care workers, and school staffers eligible for a vaccine. He said because vaccination supply remains limited, it may take some time to book an appointment.

“The fact remains, we are still only going to get about 150,000 first doses every week. We’d like everybody to get vaccinated as quickly as possible, but it will take time to move the current folks who are left in the 65-plus and two comorbidities categories, who want to get vaccinated, through the system, as well as the 400,000 educators who would be part of this group,” Baker said.

Major teachers’ unions have been pressuring Baker’s administration to move teachers higher on the state’s vaccination prioritization list, especially since state education officials announced plans to get all districts to reopen elementary schools for full-time, in-person learning in April.

Merrie Najimy, president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, said the decision helps pave the way for a return to full, in-person learning.

“It’s welcome news that the governor is finally with the program,” Najimy said. “This is a victory for the students, school employees and the entire education community.”

Massachusetts has administered about 1.2 million first doses and 1.8 million total vaccines, state health officials say.

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SECOND VACCINE DOSES

The number of Massachusetts residents receiving a first shot of the COVID-19 vaccine is beginning to slow as more doses are being used to give second shots to those who have already received a first dose.

On Thursday, about 12,000 new first appointments for mass vaccination sites will be made available to eligible groups, the Baker administration said Wednesday. More than 45,000 new second dose appointments have already been scheduled at mass vaccination sites.

The number of first dose appointments is less than previous weeks due to the volume of second dose appointments, according to a press release. About 7,500 appointments have also been booked by a call center for older adults who were unable to use a computer to book an appointment.

As more individuals have received a first vaccine dose, there is a greater need to book second appointments, so the mass vaccination sites have fewer first dose appointments available on a weekly basis, according to the administration.

Also, the state’s COVID-19 Command Center has been told that Massachusetts is receiving only one shipment of 58,000 doses of the new Johnson & Johnson vaccine for the month of March. These doses have been allocated — primarily to hospitals and health systems.

Based on information from the federal government, the administration isn’t expecting to be able to order more J&J doses until the end of March or early April.

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VIRUS BY THE NUMBERS

The number of newly confirmed coronavirus deaths in Massachusetts rose by 66 on Wednesday, pushing the state’s confirmed COVID-19 death toll to 15,925 since the start of the pandemic.

The number of newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 increased by more than 1,500 and its confirmed caseload rose to more than 553,000.

The true number of cases is likely higher because studies suggest some people can be infected and not feel sick.

There were about 750 people reported hospitalized Wednesday because of confirmed cases of COVID-19, with about 170 in intensive care units.

The average age of those hospitalized was 69. There were an estimated 29,000 people with current active cases of COVID-19 in the state.

The number of probable or confirmed COVID-19 deaths reported in long-term care facilities rose to 8,629.

More than 1.8 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in Massachusetts, including nearly 1.3 million first doses and more than 587,000 second doses.

Nearly 2.3 million doses have been shipped to the state.

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