SARASOTA, Fla. — Author Stephen King weighed in on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' choices in COVID-19 vaccination site locations and suggests the governor could be prioritizing certain groups of people.
King, who lives in Sarasota County, said on Twitter, "It seems possible—likely, even—that Ron DeSantis provided rich, Republican-leaning communities like Lakewood Ranch with priority vaccinations for political gain."
The governor faced scrutiny this past week in Manatee County at the Lakewood Ranch pop-up site. This, after Commissioner Vanessa Baugh told commissioners she chose to give the 3,000 appointments to those who live in Lakewood Ranch's neighboring two zip codes, 34202 and 34211. This choice varies from the way the county randomizes vaccine allocation through a lottery system.
Emails obtained by 10 Tampa Bay also show Commissioner Vanessa Baugh asked for her name and four others to be added to the vaccination list.
When asked about Baugh's "VIP vaccine list" at a press conference in Pinellas Park on Feb. 18, DeSantis said, "you should ask them."
On Feb. 17, he responded to concerns over vaccine distribution in Lakewood Ranch by asking “Would they rather us send it to other counties?"
“It wasn’t a choice about zip codes. It was a choice about where’s a high concentration of seniors, where you could have communities provide the ability for them to go on. It wasn’t choosing one zip code or another," DeSantis said at the time before listing locations other pod sites have popped up.
He continued Thursday saying that the pop-up vaccination sites were filled with additional doses not included in the vaccines already allotted to each county.
Over the weekend, U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist says he sent a letter to the acting U.S. attorney general asking the Department of Justice to investigate Gov. Ron DeSantis for creating what Crist says are COVID-19 vaccination sites that "benefit political allies and donors."
In the letter, Crist says some pop-up COVID-19 vaccination sites DeSantis announced: "seem to be targeted to wealthy communities with whom Governor DeSantis has clear political connections, allowing some to skip to the front of the line in counties with existing waitlists."
Crist requests the DOJ to "determine if the Governor's blatantly political vaccine distribution decisions, which do not seem to be in the public's best interest, violate federal law and merit a full federal investigation."
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