Teachers, firefighters and cops over 50 will be eligible for vaccines.

Shots to go to teachers, firefighters and police, ages 50 and up

Many teachers, firefighters and police officers will be eligible for COVID vaccines in Florida, with the anticipated arrival of the newly approved Johnson & Johnson vaccine, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday.

Only those aged 50 years or older will be eligible.

The governor said he expects the state’s vaccine supplies to be bolstered this week by increased shipments from Pfizer, the establishment of federal vaccination sites, and the arrival of 175,000 Johnson & Johnson doses.

Shortly after the DeSantis news conference, the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control disclosed that Florida will receive about 190,000 doses of vaccines from three providers this week as part of the Federal Retail Pharmacy Program.

About 823,000 coronavirus vaccines will be available this week across the United States, with the Johnson & Johnson allotment added to the roughly 1.1 million doses of Pfizer’s vaccine and 1 million doses from Moderna. Because the J&J vaccine is out-of-cycle, there may be a limited supply in the short term.

The governor amended an executive order Monday and opened up vaccines in Florida to firefighters, police officers and personnel in K-12 schools.

“We don’t know for sure whether we definitely will get it this week but we think we probably will,” DeSantis said at a news conference in Tallahassee. “We don’t know exactly how much, but tentatively the numbers we’re looking at for the Johnson & Johnson shipment to Florida this week is 175,000 doses. Now that has not been confirmed yet.”

The governor late last week also expanded vaccine eligibility to people under 65 whose physicians said they were at rise of severe illness from COVID.