| Fort Myers News-Press
Government Ron DeSantis jumped through Florida on Tuesday to announce an expanded partnership with the Publix grocery store chain to distribute COVID-19 vaccines among seniors and medical workers at the front closer to their residence.
The idea, the governor said during an afternoon stop outside a Publix in Cape Coral, is to expand access for seniors who may be struggling to navigate through the Department of Health-managed enrollment systems and get to centralized vaccination centers. In Lee County, for example, the vaccination center is near the Southwest Florida International Airport.
To reinforce this, DeSantis said that when he was at a Jupiter Publix earlier in the day, Palm Beach County officials told him that 90% of their country’s seniors live within a mile and a half of a Publix.
More: Which Publix stores in Lee County offer COVID-19 vaccines? Here is a list
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By the end of this week, 242 Publix pharmacies in 17 provinces will be offering vaccines, DeSantis said during its afternoon stop outside a Publix in Viera, Brevard County. In Jupiter, he announced similar arrangements with stores in the provinces of Palm Beach, Martin and Monroe.
“We think it will probably be very convenient for our seniors,” DeSantis told reporters in Viera.
According to DeSantis, although more vaccinations going to Publix may temporarily limit the doses that local health departments receive, the state chooses Publix because of its effectiveness.
“We have 270,000 (vaccinations) to divide,” DeSantis said in Viera. “Obviously we’re moving on with Publix now. So you do not get as many deliveries in some other areas. There are some hospitals that may not get anything this weekend because they still have.”
But whatever the federal government sends, ‘we will make the most of it,’ DeSantis added.
“At the end of the day, we wanted to expand Publix because it was successful.”
PDF: List of Publix stores that offer COVID-19 vaccinations
Publix stores will vaccinate 100 to 125 people a day, DeSantis said. Appointments can be made on the Publix website.
“So this is a difference between a centralized website where you try to get through so many people, which can be logistically difficult,” DeSantis said.
Tuesday’s announcements were the final step in DeSantis’ use of the state’s largest grocery chain to administer the vaccines. The program began two weeks ago in three counties in central Florida.
In Southwest Florida, Publix is offering shots from Thursday at all of its 32 store pharmacies in Lee County, along with seven stores in Charlotte County. Sixteen stores in Collier are already doing it. In Brevard, shots are fired at 22 Publix stores.
Meanwhile, the Florida Department of Health in Lee County announced Tuesday that it will schedule another 5,800 COVID-19 vaccination appointments at Lee County’s vaccination center near Southwest Florida International Airport on Thursday and Friday.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis talks about COVID vaccinations at a Publix in Cape Coral
“Florida was the first state in the country to put the elderly first in terms of vaccines,” Governor Ron DeSantis said at a Cape Coral Publix on January 19, 2021. He shared the news about COVID-19 vaccinations.
Andrew West, Fort Myers News-Press
Those hoping to get a spot should call 866-200-3468 on Wednesday at 9 p.m. This is the same phone line that was operated last week. According to provincial officials, it does not accept appointments before 9 p.m.
More: COVID-19 vaccine detection: check how many people have been vaccinated in Florida per province
Bookings are expected to be completed within minutes, as has been the case since vaccinations began late last month. DeSantis noticed so much in its own announcement.
“The problem with phones is that it’s melting,” he said at the Cape Coral stop. “You have to have a fleet of people (who are manned). So it’s very, very difficult to do one country. It’s probably a better way to have an online platform (like that of Publix).”
But Lee County officials have expressed the idea that the website and the dial-up system are causing delays in getting people vaccinated in a timely manner.
“If the doses were available, I would like to commit to having everyone in Lee County vaccinated by the end of May,” District Manager Roger Desjarlais said during a separate news conference on Tuesday. “We are prepared to increase this surgery to 10,000 doses per day.”
Related coverage: Lee County says insufficient COVID-19 vaccine provides major roadblock to get shots
Asked if the Publix program removes vaccines from the Lee County Department’s vaccination program, state spokeswoman Betsy Clayton said it was not.
Lee County administered approximately 9,000 doses last week. And to date, more than 19,000 in total have been vaccinated on the Lee County Vaccine Region since Dec. 28.
The federal government has informed the state that Florida will receive 266,100 doses for first shots and 506,300 doses for second shots during this week’s award, said Cody McCloud, a spokeswoman for the governor’s office.
More than 1,200 vaccine providers – hospitals, provincial health departments, pharmacies – are ready to give shots in the arms of hundreds of thousands of people as soon as the federal government delivers them, said Jared Moskowitz, director of the emergency department, last week.
And the state is developing its own registration system that will be launched in the coming weeks, which will hopefully eliminate the problems encountered in the early registration weeks.
But the federal government allows the state to see just six days in advance, and weekly shipments have become less frequent instead of increasing as originally expected.
The incoming Biden government has announced that it will mobilize the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Guard as part of its plan to provide 100 million doses of the vaccine during its first 100 days in office.
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Vaccinologist Dr Greg Poland discusses what it is like after your first dose of COVID-19 vaccine.
Staff Video, USA TODAY
More: COVID-19 vaccine ‘is our way forward’, Florida’s biggest health official tells lawmakers
Asked about plans to stop the Cape coral on Tuesday, DeSantis said changing the existing distribution system and adding a layer of government bureaucracy “could be potentially problematic.”
“All we need in Florida is more vaccine,” he said. “You get more vaccine, we have the (means) to get it (through people).”
Lee Smith, reporter Bill Smith, Jeffrey Schweers, Tallahassee reporter, and Dave Berman, reporter for Florida Today, contributed to this report.
Frank Gluck is a watchdog reporter for The News-Press and the Naples Daily News. Contact him at [email protected] or on Twitter: @FrankGluck