‘Not fair’: Florida sends mixed signals to foreigners getting COVID vaccines
A patchwork of hospital requirements for COVID vaccines has created an opportunity for ‘vaccine tourists’ from Canada, Brazil and Argentina to get the shot in Florida.
Unlike in most winter seasons, Marty Firestone, a Toronto travel agent, hasn’t had his usual stream of Canadian clients relocating to South Florida to flee their frigid winters. In fact, this year, Firestone said about 70% of his clients, many of them “snowbird” residents, stayed home.
That changed in recent weeks. As Canada stalls its vaccine rollout, Firestone is now fielding intricate questions on how out-of-towners can score a coveted vaccine against COVID-19 in South Florida.
“I think a whole new group of people that had no intentions of traveling South this year are now going to get the vaccine,” Firestone said. “My phone is ringing off the hook with people saying, ‘I’m going South.’”
But it’s not just part-time
residents who are making trips to get the vaccine. Residents over 65 from countries like Argentina and Brazil as well as Canada are also accessing South Florida’s vaccine portals in hopes of scoring a shot.
SOUTH FLORIDA POPULAR WITH MEDICAL TOURISTS
For those who can afford the travel, South Florida has long been a mecca for medical tourists, particularly citizens of Latin American countries with weakened health care infrastructures. Now, Miami’s proximity to the region is again a focal point for foreigners who see little hope in their own country’s vaccination efforts and are increasingly looking to Florida’s vaccine rollout as a faster alternative to get the shot.
And while some health officials in South Florida are encouraging anyone who meets the age requirements to make an appointment, whether tourists can get vaccinated or not remains largely up to hospitals’ discretion, even as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has said he draws a distinction between transient residents and medical tourists.
“We’re discouraging people to come to Florida just to get a vaccine,” he said at a press conference at Jackson Memorial Hospital Monday in Miami. “If they have a residence and they’re not just kind of flying by night for a week or two, I’m totally fine with that. [Snowbirds] are much different than someone just showing up and saying give me a shot and then they’re going to fly back somewhere; we’re obviously not going to do that.”
HOSPITALS DIFFER ON ACCEPTING MEDICAL TOURISTS FOR COVID VACCINES
However, in response to requests from the Miami Herald, several hospitals including Baptist Health South Florida and Jackson Health System said they would not be requiring any proof of residency for patients making vaccine appointments.
Carlos Migoya, president and CEO of Jackson Health System, said Tuesday that the hospital’s focus is to prevent the disease from spreading by vaccinating as many people as possible, as efficiently as possible. So “whether you happen to be a citizen from another country or this country” is not relevant when it comes to vaccination efforts, he noted.
In a statement to the Miami Herald, Florida Health Department spokesman Jason Mahon agreed that “all eligible individuals” could receive the vaccine, as long as they will be in the country for the second dose of the vaccine. Currently, eligible individuals include healthcare workers, long-term care residents and individuals over 65.
Dr. Yesenia Villalta of the Florida Department of Health in Miami-Dade County also said the state won’t deny the vaccine to any person who can provide a picture identification, like a passport, and stay in the country long enough to get the two doses needed to gain immunity.
Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach said it would take only appointments for MiamiDade County residents for the time being.
Broward Health said it is no longer accepting appointments, as the healthcare system for central and northern Broward County has reached capacity through February.
NAVIGATING VACCINE LOGISTICS FROM ABROAD
Crashed websites and limited appointments have not kept tourists from trying to access a vaccine.
Nerilissa Aybar, 31, a lawyer who lives in the Dominican Republic, said the past few weeks have created a lot of uncertainty about when the Caribbean country would start administering the vaccines, and who would be first. The Dominican government approved the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine on Dec. 31, and said it would begin to be administered in March.
But Aybar said she has little confidence in how the process will run because Dominican President Luis Abinader still hasn’t announced the details of what the vaccine rollout will look like.
“In my case, I’m a person with no type of disability. I’m young, which is why my turn would probably be toward the end, when everyone else is already vaccinated,” said Aybar. “And if I can go abroad and get vaccinated earlier, that would be much better.”
She said she began weighing a trip to Florida after seeing on Twitter that a former Dominican senator, Amable Aristy Castro, received the first dose of the vaccine in Miami. Aristy Castro has been in South Florida for several months recovering from a heart surgery procedure he underwent in November, according to the Dominican newspaper Listin Diario.
Aybar said she began researching how she and her relatives could get early access to a vaccine.
BRAZILIANS WANT TO BRING RELATIVES TO FLORIDA TO GET VACCINE
Some Brazilians who live in Florida are also making plans to bring non-resident relatives here to get the vaccine.
Brazil’s strong pharmaceutical industry could have supported mass production of a COVID vaccine, but a lack of logistical planning by the administration of President Jair Bolsonaro and political infighting has left Latin America’s biggest economy without a COVID-19 vaccination program.
Critics say Brazil’s health ministry did not prepare for an immunization program by securing syringes and glass vials to store a vaccine once it has been approved. Brazil crossed a grim milestone on Thursday, announcing that more than 200,000 people in the nation of 210 million have died from COVID. Case numbers totaled more than 7.9 million on Thursday.
Patricia Medici, who owns an insurance agency in Miami, wants her elderly parents to come as soon as vaccines are more widely available.
With Brazil still scrambling to put together an immunization program, Medici fears it will take months for her parents to get the vaccine. The COVID outbreak in Brazil is the world’s second-deadliest after the United States.
“We have no idea when vaccines will be available in Brazil. They can’t even get enough syringes,” said Medici.
‘IT’S JUST NOT FAIR’
Foreigners getting vaccines in Miami, however, have caused some outrage online from Florida residents who’ve spent days frustrated by the patchwork of hospital requirements for vaccines, confusing systems for appointments and slots that have quickly filled up.
Cecilia Maier, an Argentinian who lives in Orlando, said she grew angry when a friend sent her a story about Argentinian TV journalist Yanina Latorre, whose mother successfully made an appointment to be vaccinated in Miami while they both vacationed in Florida during the holidays.
“Look, from a social and solidarity perspective, I think it’s great,” said
Maier over text message. “The point is that I, as a U.S. resident, it breaks me a little bit that with my taxes, I’m paying for Yanina’s vaccine.”
Maier said she was trying to get a vaccine appointment for her father, who is over 65 and lives between Argentina and Florida. After several tries, she was able to get one for Jan. 11.
“The slots ran out in 30 minutes; I don’t even know how Yanina got one,” Maier said.
Myra Gonzalez, 52, a South Florida resident, said she felt similarly about several of her Canadian friends who traveled to Fort Lauderdale on Dec. 27. Within days, they had already scheduled their vaccine appointments for later this week.
“My father-in-law is 81 with Parkinson’s, and I wasn’t able to get an appointment,” said Gonzalez. “It’s just not fair.”
Gonzalez said her family was finally able to schedule an appointment for her father-in-law, but the earliest time available was in early February.
“What about people like me? I’ve had cancer before ... and I’m 52. You’re delaying me even longer,” she said. “They’re coming here to play tennis and pickleball.”
CONCERNS OVER NOT ENOUGH VACCINES TO GO AROUND
Carlos Espinal, the director of the Global Health Consortium at the Robert Stempel College of Public Health at Florida International University, said he doesn’t think foreigners should be allowed to get the vaccine in the U.S. — at least not yet.
“This is a dangerous issue because of the delay in the [vaccination] programs in Latin America and elsewhere,” he said. “This will definitely stimulate so-called health tourism, and now, in this phase, it seems risky to open that door.”
Due to the limited number of vaccines at the moment, he believes tourists could take away muchneeded doses from local residents and snowbirds.
He also pointed out that allowing this could reinforce the socioeconomic inequalities in the Latin American region, as not everyone will be able to afford the plane ticket and other expenses. He suggested a better approach would be for the U.S. to rejoin the World Health Organization and contribute financially so poorer countries like Honduras and Haiti can achieve the same purchasing power as the richer ones, like Argentina and Brazil.
Firestone, the Canadian travel broker, said he’s advising people not to travel just for the vaccine, but he understands if residents who were already planning to head to Florida want to take advantage of the availability of vaccines.
In Canada, Firestone said both the Pfizer-BioNTech and the Moderna vaccines have been approved, but the rollout has been delayed because of the holidays.
“It’s a disaster. They have hundreds of thousands of vaccines that are in the freezers and not in people’s arms,” he said.
Some snowbirds are chartering private jets to fly south for the vaccine, CTV News reported. For those who can afford it, flying private allows Canadians to bypass airport security lines and busy boarding gates, reducing exposure to others, the report said.
Firestone explained that most of his clients are hesitant to speak to the media or publicly admit they are getting the vaccine over fears that Florida will eventually crack down on making vaccines available to foreigners, and they will not have access to the required second dose of the vaccine in about three weeks.
“Whether intently or not, Florida has given an opportunity for Canadians to get the vaccine there instead of waiting in line here,” Firestone said.