Marta Lavandier/AP
toggle caption Marta Lavandier/AP
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis watches as nurse Christine Philips (left) administers the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for COVID-19 to Vera Leip, 88, a resident of John Knox Village, Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2020, in Pompano Beach, Fla. Marta Lavandier/AP
Scarcely a day goes by that Gov. Ron DeSantis isn t holding a news conference somewhere in Florida, talking about his policy of providing the COVID-19 vaccine to seniors first. The state now leads the nation in vaccinating senior citizens. In a state with 4.5 million people 65 and over, that s good news. The bad news is that in Florida, as elsewhere, the demand far exceeds the supply of vaccine, creating a first-come-first-served process that has left some groups out.
Denise Royal
Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens is now home to a state-run COVID-19 vaccination site for front-line healthcare workers and seniors over 65.
Jared Moskowitz, the director of Florida s Division of Emergency Management, wants more help from the federal government to vaccinate Florida s seniors. Moskowitz says he receives updates from Operation Warp Speed only once a week and the state is not getting enough vaccines to inoculate seniors at an acceptable rate.
So far, Florida has received about 1.2 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine and it’s distributed about 30% of them. Demand for the shot has picked up since Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an executive order to expand the priority for vaccine recipients to include seniors aged 65 and up.
The Florida Channel
After having a close relationship with the White House for two years, how will things change for Governor DeSantis under the Biden administration?
In a few weeks, the presidential political ground will shift significantly for Florida. Instead of a friendly partisan relationship between Tallahassee and the White House, Gov. Ron DeSantis and President-elect Joe Biden will be on separate sides of the political divide.
Joe Biden has promised to be a president to all Americans including Florida, which swung solidly behind President Donald Trump in the Nov. 3 election.
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Listen • 50:51
Strike teams from the state and national drugstore chains will be targeting nursing home patients with the first COVID-19 vaccine very soon. How are Florida facilities prepared? The AARP says nursing home settings almost guarantee the spread of a virus.
Strike teams from the Florida Department of Health and the National Guard will be targeting nursing homes with a COVID-19 vaccine, once officially approved by the Food and Drug Administration. They will have about 21,000 doses.
Those will be in addition to about 60,000 doses with Walgreens and CVS destined for long-term care facilities in Florida. That was the allotment announced Thursday by Gov. Ron DeSantis.