Cape Coral’s Curative site will no longer offer vaccines

Published:
File: Cape Coral Curative test site. (CREDIT: WINK News)

A vaccine site is shutting down as COVID-19 cases surge.

The Curative site at 1020 Cultural Park Blvd. in Cape Coral will no longer administer vaccines after Tuesday. They say there just isn’t enough interest in the vaccine to stay open.

It will, however, stay open, for COVID-19 testing.

There is more supply than demand for the vaccine.

The Cape Coral site was open for a little more than two months and averaged less than 15 vaccinations a day.

“I see almost nobody here which is kind of a shock since this is one of the closest spots where you can get the vaccine,” said Isaiah Zerna, a Cape Coral resident.

Zerna was one of a handful of people to get his COVID shot on the site’s final day.

Amparo Yamamoto, of Cape Coral, showed up too.

“I have a friend to come in here that I have to call back and say don’t come because they’re closing today. It’s very sad,” Yamamoto said.

The site opened in May. Since then, they have vaccinated 850 people.

It’s not nearly enough.

“I think there are some logistical challenges to giving the vaccine,” said Dr. Rebekah Bernard, family physician with Gulf Coast Direct Primary Care. “One is that there are certain expiration dates and when she reaches that, you have to discard the vaccine. Secondly, as once you open the vaccine then you have to give all the doses in that file within a certain hour window which is about six hours so anything once you open a bottle and it has five or six doses you might give one and then no one else comes in for the rest of the day you’re gonna have to toss the rest of those doses so I think that’s one of the factors.”

Shutting down the site now goes against the message doctors, even the president, delivers daily.

Most people who get COVID now get sick and die because they’re not vaccinated. It’s been called the “pandemic of the unvaccinated.”

“As a physician and certainly on behalf of my colleagues, please get your COVID vaccine,” Bernard said.

The best places to get the vaccine include Walmart, Publix, CVS, Walgreens and the health department.

 

 

 

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