Older citizens of Florida camp at low temperatures for the COVID-19 vaccine

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The effort to vaccinate people over the age of 65 in Florida attracts thousands of elderly people eager for unequal performance in different counties, some being so ready to get hit that they slept in their cars overnight.

In Daytona Beach, hundreds of elderly people determined to be vaccinated against COVID-19 camped in their vehicles at cold temperatures to secure coveted seats in a vaccination line on Tuesday morning, a day after seniors blocked roads. to the place of vaccination.

Officials tried to avoid repeating traffic jams on Monday, opening the parking lot of a stadium at the campsite overnight for those aged 65 and over. As of 7:30 p.m., on Monday, elderly people in 200 vehicles were on the property, which had to face overnight temperatures in the 1940s.

“We have blankets and pillows, so we’re fine,” Mary Wilde told WESH.

A few hours north in Clay County, a small region of North Florida, people booked reservations online and went in for the scheduled vaccination.

“Very fast, very easy. It didn’t hurt, “said Teresa Knight, 70. She and her 74-year-old husband received the vaccine on Tuesday morning after making an online appointment. “It simply came to our notice then. I know it will be difficult in the coming months, but I feel hopeful. “

Some counties used Eventbrite, an event management and ticketing site, to schedule vaccination meetings.

Broward County Mayor Steve Geller told a news conference Tuesday that he is bombarded with e-mails and calls from elderly citizens who are upset about the evolution of vaccine distribution.

“Many seniors panic because I think they were immediately promised the vaccine,” Geller said, adding that some may have gotten that impression after Governor Ron DeSantis issued an executive order giving priority to those over 65. “They were not, but now they feel that their faith has been broken.”

Geller added that the state simply does not have enough doses at present for all 4.5 million seniors in Florida, including the 340,000 who live in Broward County.

“Not everyone will be vaccinated tomorrow or next week or next month,” he said.

In Miami, all recordings and vaccination schedules offered on a website launched Tuesday were made in minutes, The Miami Herald reported.

Tania Leets, a spokeswoman for Jackson Health System in Miami, said 5,330 health workers were vaccinated, including staff, contractors and doctors and residents of the University of Miami. Of the more than 12,000 employees, 875 chose not to receive the vaccine immediately.

By Tuesday, at 17:00, more than 289,000 Florians had been vaccinated, most of them health workers and first responders – about 1.3% of the state’s population.

At John Knox Village, a retirement community outside of Fort Lauderdale, 50 of the approximately 250 employees of its skilled health care facility are to be vaccinated Wednesday as part of a state program, three weeks after another 80 employees they received the first blow, said Mark Rayner, the village health director.

Rayner said staff members who initially refused the shot because they feared the unknown side effects appear slowly, seeing that their colleagues are not suffering negative consequences and learning more about how the vaccine was developed. He said he would like to reach 100%, especially among nurses who have the closest daily contact with the 100 residents of the community, but the vaccine is not mandatory. Everyone wears extensive protective equipment when in contact with residents, even employees who are vaccinated.

„Concern no. 1 was how quickly the vaccine became available, “Rayner said. The development of a new vaccine usually takes years, but for this new coronavirus, one has been completed in nine months. He said employees did not understand that the government had been researching the vaccine for years and spent billions of dollars to speed up the process after the pandemic began.

The state has received more than 960,000 doses of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, of which 700,000 are in freezers and waiting to be injected into the arms of Floridians. Both vaccines require two doses – an initial inoculation and a booster vaccine weeks later.

About 83% of those who died from the disease in Florida were over the age of 65. Florida has one of the oldest populations in the nation.

On Monday, during press conferences, DeSantis warned hospitals against vaccine storage and urged them to work faster to vaccinate elderly Florentines.

On Tuesday, DeSantis said the Publix supermarket chain will begin vaccinating people aged 65 and over this week in three Florida counties.

As of Tuesday morning, there were 7,363 COVID-19 hospitalizations in Florida. According to state health department statistics, nearly 1.4 million people have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and more than 22,000 people have died since the pandemic began.

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Associated Press journalists Tamara Lush of St. Petersburg, Florida and Brendan Farrington of Tallahassee, Florida, contributed to the report.