Florida issues new Covid-19 vaccine stay rules to reduce ‘vaccine tourism’

Florida issues new Covid-19 vaccine stay rules to reduce ‘vaccine tourism’

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State Surgeon-General, dr. Scott Rivkees, signed a public health opinion prioritizing Florida residents for the vaccines, days after Gov. Ron DeSantis publicly said the shots should be reserved for part-time or full-time Sunshine State residents.

“We’re just doing (shots) for Florida residents,” DeSantis said Tuesday in Cape Coral. “You have to live here full time or at least part time.”

At another news conference Tuesday in Rockledge, DeSantis made a distinction between ‘snowbirds’ living in the winter months in Florida, and those just popping in to try to vaccinate.

“Now we have part-time residents who have been here all winter,” he said. “They go to doctors here or whatever, that’s fine. What we do not want are tourists, foreigners. We want to put seniors first, but of course we want to put people who live here first in line.”

The change came after news reports reported that some non-Florida residents, including people with second homes in Florida and several wealthy Argentines, had traveled to Florida to be vaccinated.
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As of Jan. 19, Florida has vaccinated more than 39,000 people living outside the state, including more than 1,000 who received the recommended doses, according to data from the Florida Department of Health. This is approximately 3.5% of the 1.12 million people vaccinated in Florida. The state’s data do not distinguish between tourists and part-time residents.
The revelations caused frustration among Floridians who were unable to be vaccinated, forced to wait in hours of long queues or stimulated by confusing or swaying sites.

But the issue is not specific to Florida. Vaccine tourism is the result of a few key factors: the shortage of vaccine compared to demand; the disorganized start to administer the shots; and the lack of consistent federal guidance, which has created different vaccine availability between states and even between provinces.

Dr Peter Hotez, a vaccine expert and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, said the vaccination of tourism highlights the failures of the slow-moving federal vaccination.

“If we’re in this situation for another month, we’ll be in a lot of trouble,” he said.

Why people travel to get a vaccine

Florida has allowed anyone aged 65 and older to be vaccinated, no matter where they live, making it one of the first states to be open to the age group.

In contrast, many other U.S. states have residency requirements and require people to bring ID, mail, or rental statements to prove it. A number of countries have also hacked closer to the CDC vaccine committee’s recommended Phase 1b guidelines, which say vaccines should go to adults aged 75 and over and be essential workers.
Of course, people who are desperate for the vaccine, who are able to travel and are lucky enough to get a vaccine appointment on flashy websites or hotlists, have come a long way.
Mark and Connie Wallace, who live in Shelby County, Alabama, told CNN’s subsidiary WBMA that they drove to Georgia for nearly two hours to be vaccinated at a Publix pharmacy.
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“They knew we were coming from outside the state, and they said it was good,” Connie Wallace said, “so we did not feel like we were pushing someone else out, which we did not want to do. ‘

Connie is 68 and has underlying health issues related to her heart, reports WBMA. The couple managed to make a vaccination appointment online, so they ventured to Carrollton, Georgia, to be vaccinated.

“I would have walked away for eight hours if I had to,” Mark Wallace told WBMA.

Similar interstate vaccinations have been seen in large metropolitan areas that cross borders.

New York City has vaccinated health workers or other essential workers such as teachers or firefighters who work in the city but live outside the five districts. According to NYC data, about 73% of NYC residents in the city have been vaccinated, 15% live in another part of the state of New York, and the rest live in New Jersey, Connecticut, or another state or have not do not provide their place of residence.

Because the federal government grants vaccine based on population, it has caused an unequal rollout.

Two weeks ago, Mayor Bill de Blasio sent a letter to then-Vice President Mike Pence asking him to allocate more doses to “New York City and other commuters who vaccinate more than their residents.”

Vaccination tourism is not a big deal, experts say

People are waiting in line to get the Covid-19 vaccine on January 13 at a mass vaccination site in a parking lot at Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California.

Dr William Schaffner, professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University, said he acknowledges that a New Yorker may be frustrated to see a New Jersey commuter crossing state borders to be vaccinated.

But as long as the vaccine is used rather than sitting untouched, it is not a problem from the point of view of public health.

“Instead of ‘this is my vaccine, not yours’, this is what we want to get vaccinated,” he said. “I would hope that we have vaccine fast enough so that we do not have to investigate these somewhat minor issues.”

The end goal is to vaccinate enough Americans to achieve herd immunity, which is usually estimated at about 70 to 80% of the people. Schaffner indicated that the high demand for the coronavirus vaccine at this stage is essentially a good problem.

“There are people who are eager to get the vaccine – boy, that’s a good thing,” he said. “So let’s not make ingenuity and imagination.”

Hotez said he did not view the vaccination of tourism as a moral issue, but stressed that traveling during the pandemic poses its own risks. And he noted that every state is struggling in the same way to administer enough vaccines because of the federal problems.

“Vaccine tourists are probably drafting disappointments,” he said.

Maria Cartaya of CNN contributed to this report.

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