COVID-19 vaccine has arrived in Florida. You can’t get it yet in Manatee County
Five hospitals in Florida received and began administering the first coronavirus vaccine on Monday, but doses have not yet been scheduled to be sent to Manatee County hospitals.
Tampa General Hospital was among five pilot hospitals and received 20,000 doses of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine on Monday morning. Like the other pilot hospitals, Tampa General promptly began inoculating its healthcare workers, starting with a 31-year-old registered nurse, Vanessa Arroyo, at the conclusion of a press conference by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Arroyo was the second person to be vaccinated in Florida, after Dr. Leon L. Haley Jr., the CEO of UF Health Jacksonville and the dean of the University of Florida College of Medicine in Jacksonville.
While other hospitals in the pilot program have already indicated the hospitals they will be assisting with inoculating workers, emergency management and hospitals officials in Manatee County have not yet been notified when they should expect their first doses.
“The hospital will try to keep everyone as informed as possible as when we actually receive the doses,” Manatee Memorial CEO Kevin DiLallo said Monday. “I don’t think it’s going to be this week.”
In the interim, Manatee Memorial is currently surveying its employees to determine how many want to be vaccinated.
“We are prepared to receive. We have the refrigeration and we can store the vaccine at negative 90 degrees, and we have a plan of how we will distribute but we have still not yet been notified when will receive the first shipment,” DiLallo added.
Lakewood Ranch Medical Center is part of the Manatee Healthcare System, but did not respond individually to questions about the vaccine.
Blake Medical Center is also working on confirming its plans as it awaits notification of when the vaccine will arrive to their facility.
“When we receive the vaccine, we are going to first offer it to our healthcare worker caregivers, according to the federal prioritization guidelines,” CEO Randy Currin said. “While caregivers will not be required to be vaccinated, our infectious disease experts, as well as those at the CDC, are strongly encouraging vaccination as a critical step to protect individuals from the virus.”
He went on to add, “Our clinical and emergency operations teams have developed a plan that includes storage and a vaccination administration process, and we’re working closely with the state on distribution timing.”
At Manatee Memorial, DiLallo expects the majority of hospital staff will want to get vaccinated.
“I am going to take it, absolutely, but I don’t want to jump the line. Our frontline workers will be first,” he said.
Of the hospital’s more than 2,000 employees, those who work in the emergency room, intensive and progressive care will be among the first to be inoculated.
A specific timeline for when Manatee County can expect to receive doses of the newly authorized Pfizer BioNTech vaccine or the Moderna vaccine, expected to be authorized later this week, has not been provided to Manatee County emergency management officials.
Emergency Management Coordinator Tom Kitchen said Florida Department of Emergency Management and Florida Department of Health are working on securing more doses of the vaccine, however.
“I think we should all be optimistic but also manage our expectations,” Kitchen said.
This story was originally published December 14, 2020 at 4:19 PM.
