Some SWFL seniors upset about governor’s announcement to lower vaccine age to 50+

Reporter: Gail Levy Writer: Drew Hill
Published: Updated:
vaccines for 50
Credit: Publix

Governor Ron DeSantis officially announced on Friday that people aged 50 and older will be eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine on Monday. Many seniors in Southwest Florida had mixed feelings about the announcement.

Bob Burgio is a snowbird from Buffalo, New York. “Yeah, I feel the same way everyone should get vaccinated but not at the cost of older people who have not chosen for whatever reason to get vaccinated,” Burgio said.

Waiting and waiting for the opportunity to get a vaccine is all that Merrill Keehn could do for herself and her 96-year-old mother.

“It’s just been a real adventure trying to get our vaccines and I think in the beginning when they were starting to make appointments, I thought ‘great, this might take a week or two,'” Keehn said.

“While I was trying to get [an] appointment for more than seven weeks,” she said.

Just last week, they both were finally able to secure their first dose of the Moderna shot.

“That feels like real progress to me,” Keehn said.

On Monday, 50-year-olds can get in line for a chance at a shot.

“I think it’s encouraging. I mean ultimately I know that the goal is to get everybody vaccinated,” said Keehn.

However, 82-year-old Lan-Fah Braswell feels like this system is taking a step backward by letting those 50-plus get their vaccines when she hasn’t even secured hers yet.

“This I don’t understand and what the snowbirds who as well. We’re being left out of a lot of stuff,” Braswell said. She’s frustrated.

Her 73-year-old neighbor Mary Jo Smith is fully vaccinated, so she’s trying to help Braswell.

“It’s just so many retirees down here and, and snowbirds now. That it’s … it’s just gotten impossible,” Smith said.

For them, opening up vaccine eligibility to those aged 50 and older just lessens Lan-fah’s chances. Yet they do understand that vaccinating more people is a good thing.

DeSantis said nearly 70% of Florida’s senior population has been vaccinated and that demand is dropping among those who are eligible.

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