Hurdles leave Florida seniors struggling to get vaccinated
U.S. Air Force veteran George Hardy, soon to be 90, served four years in the Korean War and has since generally felt the nation honored and respected his military service. But the Orlando retiree’s struggle to get a COVID-19 vaccine has sown doubts.
“I didn’t realize it’d be this much trouble,” he said of his futile efforts to secure a vaccination appointment.
Hardy, a widower who owns a home but not a computer, also didn’t have a smart phone or an email address. He was told he needed one or the other to pre-register with the state’s booking portal to even have a shot at getting a dose of the vaccine.
“There’s got to be thousands — thousands — of people just like me who’ve got nothing but a home telephone,” he said.
Despite Gov. Ron DeSantis’ insistence that seniors are Florida’s top priority for COVID-19 vaccinations, plans to inoculate the state’s oldest residents have failed many Central Florida elders. Like Hardy, some have called the Orlando Sentinel looking for help.
They say they have been thwarted by a system which penalizes people without a computer, cell phone or transportation.
“It’s just fruitless agitated,” said Annie and I get Battle, 81, who is house-bound in an Orlando condo.
She said she has resigned herself to the possibility she’ll never get vaccinated.
“The fact that I am homebound makes me feel a little safer than I would if I were out in the general public,” Battle said in a phone interview. “Most people who come into my house are medical [workers] and they’re checked for the virus on a weekly basis.”
While some seniors have found help from family, friends or volunteers with service agencies to connect them, others have struggled, wondering whom to call or where to turn.
“It’s great the governor prioritized 65-plus, which certainly makes sense when you look at the statistics about how this disease works,” said Jeff Johnson, state director of AARP. “But for those not accustomed to doing things online, this is a real problem.”
‘It doesn’t seem right’
When seniors do get a chance to be vaccinated without navigating online registration, the result is typically overwhelming: People camped out overnight in droves when Volusia County offered a chance to get an elusive first dose, and a recent Orlando VA vaccine clinic was so inundated with walk
ins that it had to shut down hours early.
Orange County has staffed community centers to help older residents connect to the appointment portal.
While some are tech savvy, others have little to no computer skills, said Lavon Williams, manager of the community action division, which supervises the centers. “We do get a number who come in and are like, ‘Okay, how do you turn this thing on?’ “
Hardy, for instance, had to ask a neighbor to create an email for him.
The neighbor agreed to monitor the account for future updates from CDR Health, the Miami-based company which manages the county’s vaccination appointments, and to alert Hardy to get to a computer if and when the portal should re-open.
Hardy, who will turn 90 in February, has a flip-style phone with the number Scotch-taped on the back. He carries the device when he drives, in case of emergencies, like an accident or if he gets lost. But the phone is a basic model without Internet access.
He said he also tried to get vaccinated through the region’s Veterans Administration hospitals, but was turned away because he hasn’t been a patient in the system and receives pension benefits which push him over the income limit to enroll in VA care.
“It doesn’t seem right,” Hardy said.
The VA’s vaccination clinics so far have been limited to veterans who already receive care at the VA or who enroll to do so, and not everyone meets the eligibility criteria set by Congress, said Heather Frebe, public affairs officer for the Orlando VA Healthcare System.
“But since we’ve had the vaccine, we’ve noticed we do have a lot of new people coming to enroll,” she said.
AARP’s Johnson said some states are scheduling seniors differently, setting up a notification plan through which people get phone calls from their local pharmacy or physician saying, “We’ve got you in our system. We’ll let you know when we have the vaccine.”
“That erases the anxiety and frustration of trying all these different doors which all seem to be closed all the time,” he said.
‘Help is coming’
Though Floridians 75 and older represent just 7% of the state’s coronavirus infections, they account for 62% of the deaths. State and local inoculation efforts have targeted residents of long-term care facilities and senior communities, where Orange and other counties have sent vaccination teams.
But many county governments are still making plans to help vulnerable seniors who live independently. Raul Pino, the top public health officer in Orange County, said the state and county efforts are evolving.
“More help is coming and we are designing something for home bound individuals,” he said in an email.
The state Health Department, which has trained nearly 200 firefighter/paramedics to help give vaccinations, is “working to train more and more EMS providers,” Pino said. “But the reality is that we wouldn’t be able to get to everyone at the same time.”
According to state health data through Jan. 19, of the one million Floridians inoculated with at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, about 705,000 people are age 65 or older, including about 315,000 who are age 75 or older.
Williams suggested that frustrated seniors in Orange County call 311, the county’s information hotline.
“They are very knowledgeable and equipped and trained to troubleshoot,” Williams said of the hotline’s operators. “If they can’t help you, then they’ll patch you over to [the Florida Department of Health] or some of the other community health partners.”
Older adults throughout Central Florida report similar frustrations.
A pop-up vaccination clinic in The Villages, where DeSantis touted his “Seniors First” approach to vaccinations this month, suddenly shut down days later on Jan. 16, with officials blaming “unforeseen circumstances” surrounding the nation’s vaccine supply for the clinic’s departure from the mega-retirement community.
This week, all that was left in the empty field where the clinic once sat were tire tracks, port-a-potties and a hand-washing station.
In Seminole County, officials have dispatched healthcare workers directly to homes of elderly residents, but only for those who are so frail they can’t leave their beds or are tethered to medical equipment. A 105-year-old woman with dementia didn’t qualify, her family was told.
Richard Gayer, 85, a widower living in Osceola County, has scoured websites and newspapers daily in search of the vaccine — “to no avail,” he said.
He even drove three hours to a site in neighboring Lake County.
“But they’d run out,” Gayer said. “I’m wondering if I should have stayed in Connecticut.”
He has tried to be flexible, picking “any time” when asked on registration portals for his preferred time slot. Though frustrated, Gayer said he doesn’t blame the governor, state health officials or any of the county leaders.
“It really comes down to supply,” he said. “I don’t think they’ve had enough vaccine to do much better.”
The Health Department in Osceola County has tweaked its appointment process to accommodate more seniors.
“We recognize that a lot of our seniors may not have access to technology,” said Jeremy Lanier, spokesman for the state agency. “We’ll afford them the opportunity to call the Health Department and we’ll have somebody to help them register over the phone.”