Manatee has more shots than interested arms even as vaccine eligibility age set to drop
With the eligibility age for COVID-19 vaccines set to drop again in Florida, appointments at both county-run vaccination sites in Manatee County are going unfilled.
On Thursday morning, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced that the vaccine eligibility age will drop again on Monday to anyone 40 and older. DeSantis also announced that the eligibility age will drop again the following Monday, April 5 to anyone 18 or older.
The governor’s announcement came in a pre-recorded video released through social media and email instead of a press conference where he could be asked questions. Local officials were not made aware of the timing of the upcoming change beforehand but welcomed the eligibility age dropping as they have more vaccines and available appointments than people registering for shots.
“We have already exhausted everyone eligible on our list,” Manatee County Director of Public Safety Jacob Saur said Thursday afternoon.
Those registered through the county’s COVID-19 Vaccination Standby Pool have been offered appointments multiple times, but about 60 percent of those eligible are not even responding, according to Saur.
“They don’t pick up the phone. They don’t have voicemail. They don’t call back,” he said.
As of Thursday afternoon, there were 17,268 people registered in the county’s COVID-19 Vaccination Standby Pool.
The 3,328 people registered in the pool who are between the age of 50 and 64 and are currently eligible were being contacted again on Thursday and offered appointments. The 3,018 people who have registered who are between 40 to 49 were also being contacted with appointments for next week.
The lack of response and interest has grown so much in Manatee County that only 1,700 of the 2,600 available appointments at the Tom Bennett Park drive-thru vaccine site were filled on Thursday. The Tom Bennett Park site will not be open on Friday because of the lack of response and only 730 of the available 1,200 available appointments have been scheduled at the second county-run vaccine site at the county’s Public Safety Complex.
Statewide, vaccine supplies now exceed demand with the state no longer pushing weekly allotments but instead switching to a system where the county requests how many vaccines it needs. As of Tuesday, the Florida Department of Health in Manatee County had a stock of about 16,000 first doses of COVID-19 vaccines, Saur reported to the county commission.
“We have only vaccinated a quarter of our county. We have a long way to go to be having this problem now,” Saur told the Bradenton Herald on Thursday.
As of Thursday, there were 113,802 people who had received at least the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, according to the state health department. Among them, there have been 48,606 who have been fully inoculated against the coronavirus.
County staff operators at 311 began calling those people to find out why they were being unresponsive.
“Of the people that answer, people are saying that are waiting for the Johnson and Johnson or it doesn’t fit in their schedule. But an overwhelming number of people are saying they are waiting for the Johnson and Johnson,” Saur said. “I don’t know when or if we will ever get Johnson and Johnson.”
This story was originally published March 25, 2021 at 3:59 PM.
