Florida introduction of Covid vaccine leaves frail grandparents in the dark as mechanic gets in line

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“It’s like a ticking time bomb – you just wait,” Walsh told CNN.

Her mother, Marie Schreiner, lives in a residential care facility in the Tampa area that recently closed due to a Covid-19 case. Walsh says she has made hundreds of phone calls to government agencies looking for information on how to get the vaccine, but has gotten nowhere.

Like thousands of Floridians desperate for the life-saving shot for themselves or an elderly loved one, she wonders who is in charge and why some of the most vulnerable are still waiting. According to data from Johns Hopkins University, Florida has recorded more than 1.4 million coronavirus cases and more than 22,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic. State data shows that about 83% of the deaths were of people 65 or older.

Distribution of the Covid-19 vaccine in Florida started smoothly four weeks ago, with primary care health workers getting the first shots. A week later, seniors living in long-term care facilities were given the vaccine. Then Walsh thought her mother was going to have one.

As doses of vaccines poured into Florida by tens of thousands, Governor Ron DeSantis signed an executive order for distribution. Rather than following the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines to prioritize essential workers and those over the age of 75, he offered the vaccine to all of the state’s 4.5 million seniors 65 and older.

That led to an overwhelming question. Thousands of seniors in the state waited in lines, some sleeping in their cars or on lawn chairs at night to be vaccinated at vaccination centers. Others maneuvered through jammed phone lines and crashed websites to get appointments. And some just showed up, hoping to get lucky and have a chance. But tens of thousands of others – perhaps less healthy, perhaps with fewer resources – were left out.

When CNN asked DeSantis what went wrong with the introduction of the vaccine to his state, he cut him off and said demand was high. After a contentious exchange of views in which he instructed CNN to investigate why seniors camped at night, he blamed local hospitals and health officials.

“These guys [local hospitals] are far more capable of providing health care than any state government could ever be, ”he said.

But Broward County Mayor Steve Geller says it’s the state government still in charge, with a governor setting unrealistic expectations.

While he receives angry emails and phone calls from voters blaming him for the mess, the vaccines are delivered to what’s called the Florida Department of Health in Broward. That department does not report to him but to the state and DeSantis.

“It appears that he has inadvertently given seniors the imprecise belief that they can register for the vaccine immediately and that they can now all receive vaccinations,” Geller said of the governor.

Joyce and Jack Fish would like to be vaccinated so they can visit their new great-grandchild.

Joyce Fish, an 82-year-old with cancer, is one of those who now want the vaccine. She’s fighting multiple myeloma. Once vaccinated, she and her husband Jack want to visit their new great-grandchild. But they are frustrated by all the red tape and delays.

“As for the vaccine, I don’t know where we stand, really,” Fish told CNN. “I don’t know how long it will take. I don’t know when it will be, and it’s kind of scary. You just want to know that you have an appointment in three weeks.”

Florida’s troubles began when the state failed to work with individual counties to uniformly target eligible groups, says Dr. Aileen Marty, an infectious disease specialist at Florida International University.

“The state gave doses to specific hospitals that made distribution plans themselves. That was not an efficient or effective way to do the distribution,” she said in an email.

She said the state needed to be involved so that the size of the population of targeted and at-risk people in each province would be known, making the delivery of vaccines there easier. DeSantis keeps saying the state should be hands-off.

Seniors wait in line for a library in Fort Myers last week, hoping to get one of the 800 doses of coronavirus vaccine on the site.

That does create opportunities for some seniors.

Joy Dzieginski waited in line outside the Lakes Regional Library in Fort Myers for about 14 hours.

“This is our only hope of getting back to normal, so we’re going for it,” Dzieginski told CNN.

She stayed warm, wrapped in a blanket, comparing the experience to shopping for Christmas presents all night before Black Friday.

But others are in the dark – not sick enough for a skilled nursing facility, not fit enough to sit in line. And the lack of information about when the vaccine might be available adds to their patience.

Gov. Ron DeSantis says any vaccine rollout problems are the result of failures by local authorities and high demand.

For example, Walsh, who is trying to help her 92-year-old mother, said she would have been in line for her, but she thought she and other vulnerable residents of assisted living facilities would be a priority for vaccination after medics and nursing householders .

“If I was told, ‘Why don’t you take your mom out and get her in line with you to get an injection?’ I would have,” she told CNN. “But I was under the impression that these facilities were the first.”

Walsh says she called DeSantis’s office asking why seniors like her mother are still waiting, while those with less exposure have been vaccinated. But she says she never got an answer.

CNN attempted to ask DeSantis that same question at its last press conference in Miami. He didn’t take the question and walked away.

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