Mass vaccination site opens
A client leaves the Palm Beach County Health Department COVID-19 vaccination site at the South Florida Fairgrounds on Wednesday. The newly-opened site is by appointment only and has the capacity to provide up to 7,000 COVID-19 vaccine shots per day, but will provide a limited number of shots until the vaccine supply increases.
Vaccine-seeking seniors flocked to the South Florida Fairgrounds on Wednesday as Palm Beach County’s new mass vaccination site officially opened for business.
The site has the capacity to provide up to 7,000 COVID-19 vaccine shots per day, but will provide a limited number of shots until the vaccine supply increases. There were 550 people scheduled to receive their first dose Wednesday at the site near West Palm Beach, according to a spokeswoman for the Palm Beach County Healthcare District.
Appointments are required as the Healthcare District works its way through the Department of Health’s initial wait list, which will take approximately four to six weeks to complete. Approximately 170,000 people signed up the email wait list, according to Dr. Alina Alonso, the state health department director for Palm Beach County.
The mass vaccination site will operate Monday-Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. It’s a 22,000-square-foot location with air-conditioned tents.
The South Florida Fairgrounds is one of the larger vaccination sites in South Florida, comparable to sites such as the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami-Dade.
The site comes as a federal program this week kicked off to supply vaccines to pharmacies across the U.S. In Florida, Walmart and Winn-Dixie on Tuesday announced their list of participating locations, while Publix expanded the number of counties it is serving.
Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Tuesday that Walmart and Sam’s Clubs will begin distributing the vaccine by week’s end. None of those locations, however, are providing vaccines in Palm Beach County yet.