Jacksonville aims for 10,000 vaccinations a day, but challenges lie ahead

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. The city of Jacksonville hopes to eventually vaccinate more than 10,000 people every day, but as of Tuesday, it is far from the goal.

In an update on the distribution of vaccines Tuesday morning to city council members, Brian Hughes, chief executive officer, said the goal is to increase vaccinations as quickly as possible, but there are factors that could make it challenging.

According to Hughes, 1063 vaccinations were given Monday, the first day of public vaccinations, to senior and health workers at the Prime Osborn Center.

“If you do math, it’s not going to go up to 1,000 a day, so we have to get north of 10,000 a day to really get this thing going,” Hughes said. “And it is our goal to make it as fast as possible.”

In an effort to speed up the vaccinations, the city said it will begin administering vaccines at test sites soon this week.

“We are working with the State Department of Emergency Management, which is probably preparing this week – I do not want to commit to that, because this is their operation – but they will probably transform the state’s Regency test site,” Hughes said. part of their capacity will contribute to a vaccination program that will add at least 1,000 per day.

The city also plans to vaccinate at the Mandarin Senior Center and the Lane Wiley Senior Center on the Westside. Hughes said COVID-19 testing would be scaled down at those locations and make way for vaccinations.

“There is no better way for us out of this pandemic than this vaccine,” Hughes said. “And it is now our priority to give as many people as possible vaccinations as quickly and as quickly as possible.”

Part of the problem with rolling out the new vaccination sites is the cooling of the vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna.

“This is probably one of the biggest barriers to distribution,” Hughes said. ‘I wish I could put two or three people at the tables. I wish I could throw an Igloo cooler at them and tell them ‘Hey if anyone shows up and wants to give it to them.’ This is not how this vaccine works. ”

Councilor Ron Salem, director of PharMerica-Jacksonville, a pharmacy that serves nursing homes, said he thinks it will take a while before members of the general public under 65 will receive the vaccine.

‘We have 125,000 residents in Jacksonville who are in that age group (65+). It can therefore take throughout January, even at four or 5,000 a day, before we are dealing with other people, ‘Salem said.

Then there are the challenges of getting more doses of the vaccine and planning appointments.

Last week, phone lines crashed after thousands tried to dial in to make COVID-19 vaccinations. The Duval County Department of Health then began accepting online registrations for appointments and slots completed within just over an hour.

Heather Huffman, interim director of Duval County’s health department, said Monday part of the scheduling problem is that the vaccine is being released faster than the global reservation system that is still under development. It left each country to devise an appointment plan on its own.

Hughes said Tuesday the city is still trying to determine if there is a way to make appointments that do not involve a scheduling system.

‘It can use certain days of the week. If your month of birth is a certain month of birth, then you are a Monday person. If your birth month is the case, then you are a Tuesday person or something like that that helps us manage the flow, but does not create a new technological layer that can disrupt the process. ”

For now, the Florida Department of Health in Duval County said new appointments for the COVID-19 vaccine will be added to the online system every Thursday at 5 p.m.

The health department said the link would change every week and would be posted on the warning page on the department’s website: duval.floridahealth.gov.

Anyone with questions is asked to call 904-253-1140, but appointments cannot be made by phone.

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