Mayor Lenny Curry took to Twitter to say he’s “exhausting every option and relationship to secure additional supplies to administer at city sites.”
JACKSONVILLE BEACH, Fla. — COVID-19 vaccines are drying up for healthcare workers on the First Coast, officials said.
“It puts our employees at a greater risk moving forward,” said Chad Nielsen, UF Health director of infection prevention.
Nielsen said of UF Health’s estimated 8,000 employees, 43 percent have received their first or second dose. Nielsen said he wishes that amount would continue to climb.
Going forward, Nielsen says the state has told the hospital not to expect vaccinations coming its way.
“The state is starting to pivot away from using hospitals to disseminate vaccines and instead they are leaning towards city and state-run sites,” Nielsen said.
The Regency Mall is Jacksonville’s new state-run site.
Mayor Lenny Curry took to Twitter to say he’s “exhausting every option and relationship to secure additional supplies to administer at city sites.”
Nielsen says regardless, he’s concerned as those incoming vaccines would go to city sites instead of the hospitals.
“It could leave our health care workers who do want to get it without that availability,” Nielsen said.
The best-case scenario is for more vaccines to be readily available in the coming months.
President Biden has pledged to administer 100 million vaccines in 100 days.
Nielsen said that is a high goal, but he remains cautiously optimistic.
“It’s a lot of moving parts from when they say that to when it actually gets into the arms of people here in Jacksonville, so I wouldn’t expect a change in this for months,” Nielsen said.
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