Health Dept. receives 1,000 doses; vaccinating 70 per day

Posted on January 6, 2021

Taylor County residents 65 or older began receiving the Moderna coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine on Tuesday, as the Florida Department of Health in Taylor County (DOH-Taylor) began administering 70 doses per day by appointment only.

To date, DOH-Taylor has received 1,000 doses — 500 last week and an additional 500 on Monday.

According to DOH-Taylor Director Padraic Juarez, who provided an update to the county commission Monday evening, free vaccine appointments have been scheduled through Feb. 3, with anyone else who calls or goes online for an appointment being placed on a waiting list until additional doses arrive.

Under Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ statewide vaccine plan, the three groups who are set to receive the vaccine first are front-line medical workers, those in nursing homes and assisted living facilities and people 65 and older, who are considered the most susceptible to the disease.

Juarez said his department has been placed in charge of delivering the vaccine to front-line workers and those over age 65, while drugstore chains CVS and Walgreens are responsible for vaccinating people in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

At Monday’s commission meeting, Juarez answered sometimes pointed questions from commissioners over the speed of the vaccine effort here.

“Last Monday, we got 500 does of Moderna vaccine,” Juarez said. “Because of questions I have gotten from various sources, I want you to know, prior to Monday morning, I had no idea how many doses we were going to get. I knew we were going to be getting some vaccine, but we had no idea how much. So, that’s why a plan was not put in concrete before that time.

“Once we knew how many doses we had on site, we came up with a plan,” he said. “All last week, we were working on getting our medical people vaccinated. Also, we set up some clinics starting tomorrow (Tuesday, Jan. 5) for those 65 and older.

“People started calling. I have no doubt some of you commissioners got calls from people in your community that the health department is not answering the phone. What happened is the Department of Health in Taylor County is on the same system as half of Florida’s 67 counties. Every person 65 and older started calling their respective health departments, and the phone system went down.”

In response, a website has been established to allow people to register (https://tinyurl.com/ycsw4ep5) in addition to calling the DOH phone line.

“Monday morning, once the phone lines were open, we had 200 people call wanting to get an appointment,” Juarez said. “Those 200 people have an appointment. We opened enough clinics so we could cover the vaccine that we have. I will tell you I am conservative in the aspect that they’ve told me we’re going to continue to get vaccine – and we will continue to get vaccine. We will get more vaccine next week and the week after that. But I’m not willing to set up clinics so far in advance that we have to turn around and call someone and say, we didn’t get the vaccine and we can’t do this for you. We have scheduled clinics out to February.”

The Moderna vaccine, which boasts a 94.1 percent success rate at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 cases, requires two doses, with the second administered 28 days after the first for full effectiveness.

When asked, Juarez said his department has been told they will receive the necessary secondary doses in additional to more shipments to continue providing people their first dose.

When Juarez stated the local health department plans on giving 70 doses per day, Commissioner Jim Moody asked how long it takes to give the vaccine.

“To actually give the shot?” Juarez asked. “About 15 seconds.”

“In other words, when a person gets in there, you can pretty much work them right through?” Moody asked.

“Unfortunately, no,” Juarez said. “This is like saying how long it takes to change the oil in a car. It only takes a minute, but you have to fill out the paperwork. And, with Moderna, the medical requirement is after you give the shot, we need to observe them for 15 minutes. So, we have a waiting area where people are filling out their paperwork. Then we move them over, and they get their shot. Then we have a waiting area for the 15 minutes. Then they can go home.

“We have clinics now set up through Feb. 3,” Juarez said. “Those are clinics that will be held in the health department. After Feb. 3, we’re looking at moving to either a drive-by – similar to what they’re doing in Leon County – or we may be doing a ‘walk-by’ where we would come to the county and ask if we can use one of the county facilities.”

Although those plans have not been finalized, Juarez said the health department is currently looking at using the Taylor County Sports Complex or Forest Capital Hall, where there is enough parking to accommodate people before and after the vaccine is given.

When asked by Commissioner Michael Newman if DOH-Taylor had enough doses to cover the clinics they’ve already scheduled, Juarez said, “That amount I’m very sure we will have.”

During the discussion, Juarez noted the vaccines given out by his department are not limited to only Taylor County residents because it is a federal program. Likewise, Taylor County residents could receive the vaccine in another county as well.

Juarez also said that the Moderna vaccine, which must be kept at cold temperatures, is good for 30 days once it is placed in a normal refrigerator.

“Where the real challenge is, it comes in a vial that has 10 doses,” he said. “Once you puncture it, it’s only good for six hours. That’s how come everything we’re doing is 10, 10, 10. We don’t want to waste any doses. I don’t want to end the day with seven doses in a vial. We’ve not done that.

“Because we were not able to get to all the medical people last week, we have some of them on a 15-minute hold call,” Juarez said. “In other words, somebody is going to cancel. So, we have some of [the medical personnel] on a: ‘If you can be here in 10 minutes, we can give you a shot.’ That way, we’re not wasting any vaccine.”

Juarez said health department staff will be reviewing their procedures over the first several days to see how they can speed up the process moving forward, but added that he wanted to see the plan working before making changes.

“We will have to get to a point where we no longer have a reservation system,” he said. “I have been ‘promised’ – the air quotes are because sometimes promises don’t come true – that we will have a statewide scheduled program out in the near future.” For more information, contact DOH-Taylor at (850) 584-5087.

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