Seniors spurn city’s urging, line up early for COVID-19 vaccines
Mandarin, Lane Wiley senior centers offer first-come, first-served shots based on birth month
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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Despite the city of Jacksonville urging people NOT to line up before 10 a.m. Tuesday, hundreds of people waited for hours outside the Mandarin and Lane Wiley Senior Centers to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
The vaccine is available Tuesday to seniors, health care workers and first responders with birthdays in March or April.
Both Monday and Tuesday, hopeful seniors began lining up before dawn at the senior centers, which are vaccinating Duval County residents 65 years old and older and front-line medical workers not by appointment, but based on their birth month.
Plans to boost the pace of COVID-19 vaccinations in Duval County are getting bogged down by a limited amount of vaccine doses that is far short of the demand coming from residents for the vaccine shots.
The city of Jacksonville is ready to open its own city-run COVID-19 vaccination sites but is waiting for shipments of the vaccines in sufficient numbers to make the shots available at two sites the city would use to administer the vaccinations Mandarin Senior Center and the Lane Wiley Senior Center on the Westside. If we could get the vaccines in Jacksonville today, we would have city locations vaccinating within 48 hours, city Chief Administrative Officer Brian Hughes said Tuesday in briefings to City Council committees. I am doing everything in my power to get the vaccines.
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A long line formed at the Prime Osborn Convention Center Wednesday morning with about a hundred people showing up in hopes they would be able to get inoculated.
However, officers with the Jacksonville Sheriff s Office reportedly turned many people away who did have appointments. First Coast News reached out to JSO to confirm this but have not heard back.
Our team spoke with a first responder from Jacksonville Beach who said that his supervisor told them they could show up and be let in. Zach Watson said he was turned away and described the scene outside Prime Osborn as confusing.