First person in Florida receives vaccine, more shipping Tuesday

The COVID-19 vaccine has arrived in Florida. At 10 a.m. during a press conference in Tampa, Governor Ron DeSantis said he saw the vaccines being unloaded. But just how many doses is Florida receiving?

“We watched them unload, we saw him put it into the deep freeze, the Pfizer requires negative 70 degrees,” said DeSantis.

Just an hour later, the vaccines were being put to use. “Today, we will have shots going in arms,” Governor DeSantis said.

But Monday is just the beginning of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in Florida. 20,000 more doses are waiting for frontline workers at Tampa General and other hospitals across the state.

John D. Couris is the president and CEO of Tampa General Hospital. “The way I’ve described it to my team is…this is 20,000 doses of hope. This is the beginning to the end,” said Couris.

Governor DeSantis said other people in the area, not just at Tampa General will be vaccinated. “You will be seeing folks at Tampa general with this shipment being vaccinated. But you also this week see employees from some of these other areas, be other hospitals be vaccinated,” DeSantis said.

By Tuesday, expect more than 100,000 doses of the coronavirus vaccine to be spread across the five Florida hospital systems that were chosen for the initial rollout.

Doses are said to be on the way for the state’s vulnerable older adult population.

“We also have about 60,000 going to CVS and Walgreens for the long-term care mission,” said Governor DeSantis.

For those older adults not living in nursing homes, the governor expects to vaccinate them by the third week of December if Moderna’s emergency use authorization goes through this week.

For the rest of the population, Dr. Charles Lockwood, Dean of University of South Florida’s Medical School said, “We’re almost there. But this Herculean effort is going to really make a huge difference. And we will have a return to normality. Very quickly.”

Governor DeSantis says that by the end of December, Florida could see anywhere from 700,000 to 1,000,000 doses of the vaccine. We could also receive 400,000 doses of Moderna’s vaccine next week.

---