The mayor of Miami-Dade declares the launch of the COVID programming site run by the county

MIAMI – According to the Centers for Disease Control, there are now 125 cases of strain B117, also known as the UK variant. This variant was detected in Florida, with more than half of the cases in Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

The race is underway for the southern floridians to be vaccinated. On Sunday, Hard Rock Stadium vaccinated 1,200 people.

Researchers at the University of Miami are actively looking for variants of cases examining the virus in patients at Jackson Memorial Hospital.

With Floridians struggling with scheduling vaccines since the start of vaccine distribution, the state hopes to make things easier with a centralized website: myvaccine.fl.gov.

Meanwhile, the mayor of Miami-Dade, Daniella Levine Cava, said on Sunday, this week, in South Florida, the county will reveal a similar registration site this week.

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“The biggest problem is supply,” Levine Cava said. “We will allow people to sign up only once and pull from that list as the offer becomes available, but we will not book appointments until we receive the allocation each week.”

The website where people will be able to sign up for an appointment is vaccines.nomihealth.com/mdc.

“We created the centralized information site miamidade.gov/vaccine, also available in Spanish and Creole, and now we have ordered all the distribution sites to provide us with the information they have. The state does its job, and when the federal government gets involved, you know they will do their job, and the important point is that the public must have a centralized source of information so they don’t have the anxiety of constantly hunting, ”he said.

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Vaccine demand is currently higher than available supply.

Despite the fact that black and Hispanic people are disproportionately affected by COVID-19, many of these communities do not receive vaccines.

Lack of access and mistrust are among the reasons why Dr. Hansel Tookes, an expert in infectious diseases, blames this phenomenon.

“There is a deep mistrust of the vaccine in minority communities, and Tuskegee is an example of evil, but what I am telling my patients is that we cannot allow the evil that took place in Tuskegee to harm us today in 2021,” said Dr. Tookes said Sunday this week in South Florida.

Skepticism in the community is nothing new. The Tuskegee Syphilis experiment of the 1930s is just one example of a disease that progressed without treatment.

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How well vaccines will be protected against the UK strain is also being researched locally. The more transmissible strain in the UK is potentially more dangerous.

“(This) variant is not only more contagious, but also more severe,” said FIU infectious disease expert Dr. Aileen Marty earlier this weekend.

LINKED LINKS:

How to get coronavirus vaccines in Miami-Dade County

Where are the coronavirus vaccination sites in Broward County?

Print the forms before you go, click here.

Is it time for the second vaccine? Here’s what you need to know

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WATCH: This week in South Florida: Dr. Hansel Tookes

WATCH: This week in South Florida: Daniella Levine Cava