COVID vaccines for 18-and-over at MDC North?
The federally supported vaccination site at Miami Dade College North campus appears to have pivoted from state guidelines early Tuesday and begun offering vaccinations to many Floridians 18 and older who did not meet the governor’s eligibility criteria.
Long lines snaked through the campus’ parking lot and stretched down Northwest 27th Avenue, even before the site’s 7 a.m. opening.
The sight is similar to what was seen at a federally supported vaccination site in Florida City Saturday. Staffers went against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ executive order and opened up vaccinations to everyone because the site was seeing low demand. FEMA officials reverted the site back to following state guidelines Sunday.
On Tuesday at MDC North, those waiting in line by foot were brought into the parking lot where FEMA tents were set up, and waited further to
register. Appointments are not required at the site and most people were not registered ahead of time.
An employee at the site said the line for people walking to the site was closed off at 8 a.m., an hour after the site opened. And as of 12:45 p.m., the estimated wait time for people in the car line was between five to six hours.
Once inside, those seeking vaccinations were given wristbands: red if they had a doctor’s note or the state’s “at-risk” form affirming underlying health conditions, blue for a Johnson & Johnson vaccine and yellow for
Pfizer’s vaccine (Registrants had the option of picking which vaccine they wanted.). Their IDs were scanned and after a quick health screen, they were sent inside for their shot.
The bulk of the line consisted of people who appeared to be under 65 and did not have a “atrisk” red wristband — people who were trying to get lucky after hearing reports that the site was vaccinating anyone 18 and older with identification.
Several people under 65 who were vaccinated also told Miami Herald news partner CBS4 that they were only asked to show a driver’s license.
Some site staff were reminding those waiting in line that vaccines were supposed to be for those 65 and older, those with proof of underlying health conditions, healthcare workers with direct patient contact or law enforcement and firefighters 50 and older and preK-12th grade teachers and school staff or childcare workers.
FEMA spokeswoman Karyn Swoopes redirected the Miami Herald to the Florida Division of Emergency Management, which is tasked with the state’s vaccine distribution. The division did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, the county has opened a new vaccine site at the HomesteadSports Complex, 1601 SE 28th Ave. The site is accepting appointments for people 65 and up, longterm care facility residents and staff, health care personnel with direct patient contact and K-12 school employees, sworn law enforcement officers and firefighters 50 and older.
To get an appointment, go to miamidade.gov/ globalinitiatives/coronavirus/vaccine/countyregistration.page
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Florida’s GOP-led Legislature took the first steps on Tuesday to reach its goal of putting a stop to to efforts by cities and counties to strengthen options for energy alternatives in the age of climate change.
The Senate Regulated Industries Committee gave preliminary approval to SB 856 that would preempt prevent local governments from blocking or restricting construction of “energy infrastructure” related to such things as production and distribution of electricity, natural gas and petroleum products. The House Tourism, Infrastructure and Energy Subcommittee approved a similar bill, HB 839 along party lines, 13-5.
The Senate committee also approved SB 1128 that would prevent local governments from banning natural gas as an energy source in new construction.
If passed, environmentalists say the measures would put the state’s energy future into the hands of the Florida Legislature, whose members — often from both parties — have been heavily influenced by the state’s utility monopolies through political contributions and other favors.
The measure, by Sen. Travis Hutson, R-St. Augustine, and another bill that attempts to limit local rules relating to solar installations, SB 1008, have alarmed Florida’s clean energy advocates and environmentalists.
“In a shocking power grab, Florida’s monopoly utilities and their allies in the state legislature are trying to strip local authority over all aspects of how we power our lives,’’ said Aliki Moncrief, executive director, Florida Conservation Voters.
“This is an appallingly bad bill,’’ said David Cullen,
lobbyist for the Sierra Club of Florida. “It would destroy everything.” He urged the Senate committee to reject the bill, but they supported it along party lines.
“Transition means there has to be change,’’ Cullen said. “All this bill does is to prevent localities from helping to make that change to moving to clean renewable energy.”
In favor of the bill were lobbyists for the Florida Petroleum Association, the Florida Natural Gas Association and the Florida Retail Federation, the Florida Home Builders Association, and the National Utility Contractors Association of Florida but none of them spoke at the meetings.
If passed, the reach of the measure is enormous say officials of the Florida League of Cities and the Florida Association of Counties who testified against the bills.
SB 856 invalidates local comprehensive plans that restrict land use related to fossil fuel and renewable energy. It would prevent local governments from prohibiting natural gas fracking, nullify their solar permitting ordinances, weaken Southeast Florida’s climate compact, end renewable energy grant programs and eliminate county authority over pipelines along roadways.
What’s more, it peels back existing protections and clean-energy goals. That includes 11 local governments that have signed agreements to electrify their vehicle fleets to achieve goals of net zero dependence on fossil fuels.
‘UNFATHOMABLE CONSEQUENCES’
“This legislation as written now will have unfathomable consequences for local policy and local safeguards that are decades in the making and will cause widespread confusion about countless other local ordinances zoning codes resolutions contracts,” said Jonathan Webber, deputy director of
Florida Conservation Voters.
He cited the Senate staff analysis which notes that the bill “may impair local governments vested rights or contractual obligations, or ability to satisfy a contractual obligation.” And he warned “this bill will become a lightning rod for litigation.”
Hutson said the “genesis” of the bill was based on the fact that “there’s really no state guidelines or guidances on what clean energy should look like.”
But, rather than establish guidelines, the measure targets local efforts at filling the gap.
But Rebecca O’Hara, deputy general counsel for the Florida League of Cities, said that cities are “not advocating for any ban on fossil fuels or any ban on types of energy sources or bans on gas stations” but the bill “goes much further than that” by halting local control over any type of energy infrastructure.
Hutson amended the bill and portrayed it as an attempt to “preempt local governments from prohibiting gas stations” in communities, unless they are already in existing comprehensive plans.
But opponents said the measure would also restrict private electric vehicle charging stations, potential competitors to the state’s monopoly utilities.
“Under this bill the state could cite substations and transmission lines next to an elementary school, or gas station inside a residential neighborhood and local residents would just have no say and have to live with it,’’ Webber said.
NATURAL GAS USE TARGETED
The Senate committee also approved SB 1128 which would prevent local governments from discouraging the use of natural gas in their building codes. It is also fiercely opposed by cities and counties and clean energy advocates.
Florida is one of the states that continues to rely exclusively on monopoly utilities to provide energy. Customers cannot switch utilities if they don’t like the fact that their local power provider chooses to generate electricity using a fuel source which contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. So as cities, counties and states across the country seek to slash emissions, they’re increasingly turning to policies that ban natural gas in new construction.
Miami, which stands to lose billions if sea levels keep rising, recently announced that it would need to block natural gas hookups in new construction soon if it hopes to reach its goal of going carbon neutral by 2050.
When Austin and San Antonio tried to enact the same policies, gas lobbyists watered them down, and lawmakers in the statehouse introduced two new bills blocking local governments from banning natural gas.
Besides Texas and Florida, 10 other states have enacted or proposed legislation that preempts local governments from controlling natural gas. An investigation by the Guardian, the Texas Observer and the San Antonio Report found that the American Gas Association is coordinating and lobbying for these bills.
Armani Arellano, a Florida State University student and an intern at Environment Florida said that climate change is a “the defining issue for future generations” urged the committee to reject the measure.
“We really want to see is actually on this and the way for action isn’t to prohibit the use of new building codes and adhere to the old ones,” he said, but to allow local governments to enact change.
The preemption bills are among a lengthy list of proposals introduced this session that are designed to use the legislative power of the GOP majority in Tallahassee to block more progressive policies coming from local officials, often in Democratic-dominated city and county commissions.
Go to www.MiamiHerald. com to read a more complete version of this story.