The Sumter County Department of Health has received nearly 20,000 additional doses of COVID-19 in the past week, distributing many of them to other local health care providers to intensify the vaccination effort.
The Department of Health shares many of the doses with UF-Health The Villages Hospital, Florida Cancer Specialists and Langley Health Services.
“Other community partners are interested in supporting mass vaccination efforts,” said Dr Sanford Zelnick, director of the Sumter County Department of Health.
The province is also continuing to vaccinate doses to Global Medical Response, which vaccinated 1,000 people a day during the five days a week they were in use at Lake-Sumter State College in Sumterville.
Global Medical Response will travel to the St. Vincent de Paul is moving Catholic Church in Wildwood, which is closer to population centers in The Villages and Wildwood, Zelnick said.
Last week, the Sumter Department of Health vaccinated 1,243 people at the Wildwood Community Center.
The good news is that the local spread of Coronavirus seems to be declining.
Admissions for hospitalization due to COVID-19 infection decreased from the 60-70 inpatients at the height of the pandemic to a daily census in the hospital of about half the number, Zelnick said.
The Sumter County health department will use the EventBrite notification for the next two weeks of vaccinations. A total of 1,800 first vaccination opportunities will be offered over the next two weeks over various vaccination dates and times.
“By offering more vaccinations over more days, we are hopeful that there will be more time to enable people to sign up than happened earlier at the EventBrite registrations in early January,” Zelnick said.
Registration will start on the afternoon of Saturday 27 February at this link: https://sumtercovid19vax.eventbrite.com
If you have applied for vaccination through the state registration system (call 866-201-7196 or online at https://myvaccine.fl.gov/), you will be contacted to confirm your interest in vaccination. If you confirm that you are still interested, the Sumter County Department of Health will continue to make appointments from this pre-registration list.
Residents of Sumter County are reminded to please plan to receive their second dose from the same provider who provided them with the first dose as you are planning this way.