Counties prep for eligibility expansion
As Florida moves to open vaccine access to all adults on April 5, counties on the front lines of the mass-vaccination effort say they’re ready for an expected stampede of appointment-seekers as hundreds of thousands more Floridians become eligible for the sought-after shot.
Officials in Central Florida say they’ve worked out kinks in their platforms to book appointments — some of which crashed under initial crushes of users in December — and have deep freezers at the ready capable of storing an influx of doses if more become available. Some also have plans to expand their offerings, including new and expanded mobile units and ramped-up capacity at existing sites.
Across metro Orlando, emergency managers and other officials said the question isn’t whether they can handle the increased demand — it’s whether they can get the supply to meet it.
“The governor may have opened up eligibility, but if we still have the same amount of vaccine, we can still only do the same number of people,” said Tommy Carpenter, director of the Lake County Office of Emergency Management.
A spokeswoman for Gov. Ron DeSantis and a spokesman for the Florida Department of Health didn’t respond when asked if county allotments would increase in light of the governor’s expansion of eligibility. The governor didn’t address supply in a videotaped statement his office released Thursday announcing the April 5 expansion.
Previous expansions of eligibility have been met with bottlenecks of traffic to online platforms for booking appointments. In December, hundreds of thousands tried to book scarce appointments for the shot in Orange County, which Monday saw a similar surge on the first day people 40 and older could receive the shot at the Convention Center.
That day, 7,000 appointments were booked in 13 minutes.
But Orange doesn’t use the same statewide appointment portal most counties do — including Lake, Osceola and Volusia — which
suggests the state site, MyVaccine.fl.gov, will face especially heavy demand. The site already warns, “The COVID-19 vaccine supply is VERY LOW. Florida continues to receive the maximum amount allotted from the federal government, however with such a limited supply, it will take time for every resident to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.”
Already, the loosening of restrictions has allowed Orange to reach its capacity regularly at the Convention Center, which currently is capable of administering 3,000 shots per day.
Prior to Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings’ decision to expand access beyond state guidelines, the site struggled to hit capacity for several weeks, sometimes falling more than 1,000 appointments short of the goal. DeSantis, who last week criticized Demings for the unapproved expansion, this week announced that eligibility statewide would shift to include those older than 40 starting Monday.
Banks and Orange officials could expand capacity at the Convention Center to accommodate massive demand for shots of Pfizer and Moderna. They also plan to send mobile teams to different pockets of the county, as the county did with mobile COVID-testing teams last year.
“We’re optimistic we can continue to advance at the Orange County Convention Center to maybe get to 5,000 per day,” Banks said.
Paired with a planned mobile site that he expects to reach 1,000 per day, the county government could administer more than 40,000 vaccines per week.
But that plan can only proceed if the state delivers enough doses, which has not been the case so far.
In Seminole County, officials are ready to receive and administer more shots but have no indication from state and federal officials that additional supply is on its way. Preliminary numbers show the county next week is due to receive about 7,000 shots, the same as last week, even as the eligibility has expanded well beyond the governor’s initial “Seniors First” plan, said Steven Lerner, a senior planner in emergency management for Seminole.
“We’re still only receiving
minimal amounts from the state,” Lerner said. “It’s going to be incredibly frustrating if there isn’t enough doses to go around in the county allocation.”
In addition to its permanent site at the Oviedo Mall and its smaller scale mobile sites, Seminole County officials have plans set up larger mobile sites that can “push out thousands of doses instead of hundreds of doses.” They also hope to expand hours at all sites, to better reach people who work during their current operating hours.
“We can definitely scale up,” he said. “As this expands [in the next two weeks] it’s only going to get harder to find doses.”
The loosened criteria will also apply to the federal site at Valencia College’s West
Campus, which is giving 500 first doses per day through April 7 and, a week later, will offer Johnson & Johnson shots from April 14 to April 28.
In metro Orlando, so far more than 550,000 people have received at least one shot of vaccines, in a region of more than of about 2.6 million. Of that, 566,079 people in Orange, Seminole, Lake and Osceola counties are younger than 18, and won’t be eligible for the shot come April 5.
For those who are, finding a shot could prove challenging if vaccine allotments don’t rise ahead of the expansion.
“There’s going to be an initial period when the demand is a lot higher than our ability to fulfill that demand,” said Dr. Raul Pino, the local state health officer in
Orange County. Pino said he expects demand to become more manageable about four weeks later.
Lake County has averaged roughly 2,100 shots a day at its appointment-based site at the Lake Square Mall, but Carpenter said that location can handle more. And he’d like to see the federal and retail pharmacy sites — as well as doctor’s offices — get additional vaccine too.
“This Friday, we’re going to try to put more appointments online [through the state’s vaccination portal] … and hopefully Florida will come become more saturated with vaccines,” he said.
At the Florida Department of Health in Osceola County, public information officer Jeremy Lanier said well over 60% of Osceola’s 65-and-over population has been vaccinated, as has more than 40% of the 50-plus age group, despite the fact that most 50- to 59-year-olds have only been eligible for less than a week.
“We’re in a great position right now,” Lanier said. “Even though we’re experiencing heavy traffic at our state-supported site… we’re really planning ahead for a higher volume of folks.”
That includes scouting for a second large vaccination location in the months ahead as well as a busy outreach program that has worked with churches and community centers to establish walk-up and drive-through sites without appointments. Early next month, the county is partnering with local nonprofits to inoculate homeless people with the singledose Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
The state has provided both nurses to give shots and personnel from the Florida National Guard to offer logistical support for the effort.
“This whole thing has been a learning process for many counties,” Lanier said. “You know, it’s been a challenge because we’re continuing to provide all the services we normally do as a health department in addition to handling testing and vaccination for the pandemic.”
In Volusia, where seniors in January were sleeping in their cars in mile-long lines for vaccines, officials don’t expect a repeat next month.
“It’s still speculation, but we’re a well-oiled machine at this point,” said county spokeswoman Kate Sark. “We have been consistently receiving 4,000 doses a week for our [main vaccination] site at the Volusia County Fairgrounds. And we’ve had no problem administering those.”
Between staff from the Florida Department of Health in Volusia, workers from the county’s Citizen Information Center — who normally handle disaster relief — and volunteer veterans from Team Rubicon, Sark said the county has had plenty of manpower.
And because many younger Floridians who work in the health care, public safety and education fields already have been eligible for the vaccine, demand from younger Floridians may prove softer.
“So it’s not like we’re just opening the floodgates,” Sark said. “I think that will play in our favor.”