Florida is enacting new Covid-19 vaccine residency rules to reduce ‘vaccine tourism’

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State Surgeon General Dr. Scott Rivkees signed a public health advisory in which Florida residents prioritized the vaccines, days after Governor Ron DeSantis publicly said the shots should be reserved for part-time or full-time residents of the Sunshine State.

“We only do (shots) for Florida residents,” DeSantis said in Cape Coral on Tuesday. ‘You have to live here full-time or at least part-time.’

At another press conference in Rockledge on Tuesday, DeSantis distinguished between “hibernators,” who live in Florida during the winter months, and those who just stop and try to get vaccinated.

“Now we have part-time residents who are here all winter,” he said. “They go here to doctors or whatever, that’s fine. What we don’t want are tourists, foreigners. We want to put seniors first, but of course we want to put the people who live here first. ‘

The change came after news stories reported that some non-Floridians, including those with second homes in Florida and several wealthy Argentines, had traveled to Florida to get vaccinated.
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As of Jan. 19, Florida has vaccinated more than 39,000 people living out of state, according to data from the Florida Department of Health, including more than 1,000 who received the recommended two doses. That’s about 3.5% of the 1.12 million people vaccinated in Florida. State data does not distinguish between tourists and part-time residents.
The revelations led to frustration among Floridians who were unable to get vaccinated, forced to wait in lines for hours, or bothered by confusing or flailing websites.

But the problem is not Florida specific. Vaccine tourism is the result of a few key factors: the shortage of vaccines compared to demand; the unorganized begins to administer the shots; and the lack of consistent federal guidelines, which has led to differing availability of vaccines between states and even between counties.

Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccine index expert and the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, said vaccine tourism highlighted the failures of the slow rollout of federal vaccines.

“If we’re still in this situation in a month, we’re going to have a lot of trouble,” he said.

Why people travel to get a vaccine

Florida had everyone 65 and older vaccinated no matter where they live, making it one of the first states to open up to that age group.

In contrast, many other U.S. states have residency requirements and instruct people to bring ID, postal, or rental statements to prove it. A number of states have also moved closer to the CDC vaccine commission’s recommended Phase 1b guidelines that say vaccines should go to adults 75 and older and primary care workers.
Of course, people who are desperate for the vaccine, able to travel, and lucky enough to get a vaccination appointment on picky websites or hotlines, have gone far and wide to get them.
Mark and Connie Wallace, who live in Shelby County, Alabama, told CNN subsidiary WBMA that they drove nearly two hours to Georgia to get vaccinated at a Publix pharmacy.
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“They knew we were from another state and they said that was fine,” Connie Wallace said, “so we didn’t feel like we were pushing someone else out, which we didn’t want to do.”

Connie is 68 and has underlying health problems related to her heart, WBMA reported. The couple managed to book a vaccination appointment online and so ventured to Carrollton, Georgia, to get vaccinated.

“I would have gone eight hours if I had to,” Mark Wallace told WBMA.

Similar interstate vaccinations have been seen in large metropolitan areas crossing borders.

New York City has vaccinated health workers or other essential workers such as teachers or firefighters who work in the city but live outside the five boroughs. According to NYC data, about 73% of people vaccinated in New York live in the city, 15% live in another part of New York State, and the rest live in New Jersey, Connecticut, or another state, or have their residence not provided.

As the federal government allocates vaccines based on population, this has resulted in an uneven rollout.

Two weeks ago, Mayor Bill de Blasio sent a letter to then Vice President Mike Pence asking for more doses to be given to “New York City and other commuter jurisdictions that vaccinate more than their residents.”

Vaccine tourism isn’t that bad, experts say

People are waiting in line to get the Covid-19 vaccine on Jan. 13 at a mass vaccination site in a parking lot at Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California.

Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University, said he saw that a New Yorker could be frustrated to see a New Jersey commuter cross state lines to get vaccinated.

But as long as the vaccine is used rather than left untouched, it’s not a problem from a public health point of view.

“Instead of ‘it’s my vaccine, not yours’, (getting) the vaccine in the arms is what we want,” he said. “I hope we have the vaccine soon enough so that we don’t have to discuss these somewhat insignificant issues.”

The end goal is to vaccinate enough Americans to achieve herd immunity, generally estimated at about 70 to 80% of people. Schaffner indicated that the high demand for the coronavirus vaccine is essentially a good problem at the moment.

“There are people who are eager to get the vaccine – boy, that’s a good thing,” he said. “So let’s not use their ingenuity and imagination.”

Hotez said he didn’t see vaccine tourism as a moral issue, but he stressed that traveling during the pandemic carries its own risks. And he noted that every state is equally struggling to deliver enough vaccines because of the federal troubles.

“Vaccine tourists are likely to disappoint themselves,” he said.

CNN’s Maria Cartaya contributed to this report.

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