TAMPA, Fla. — Florida’s vaccine eligibility requirements change on Monday, but for those trying to get theirs this weekend, you might be in luck.
The vaccination site at the Tampa Greyhound Track had more than 1,000 doses of vaccine go unused Saturday, March 20. The site has 2,000 Pfizer doses available and 500 Johnson & Johnson doses. On Saturday, the site administered 1,470 shots.
“So to sum it up, anybody that's coming for a vaccine will be able to get one," explained Ignatius Carroll, the state public information officer for the Tampa Greyhound Vaccination sites.
The location runs on appointments and walk-ups. Any vaccine that is not used is rolled over to the next day.
Over the past three days, the site has surpassed 2,000 vaccinations only once.
"Because we have not hit the max, we have not run out. We've been able to vaccinate everybody who's come through," Carroll said.
Eligibility at the track site follows the state guidelines, which includes the following groups of people:
- Long-term care facility residents and staff
- Persons 50 years of age and older (officially starts Monday, March 22)
- Health care personnel with direct patients
- K-12 school employees
- Sworn law enforcement officers 50 years of ages and older
- Firefighters 50 years of age and older
People who are not listed in the above groups but are considered "extremely vulnerable" to COVID-19 must have a form filled out by their health care provider and brought to the vaccine site.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said if the vaccine rollout to people age 50 and up goes well this week, the next move will be to make the vaccine available to everyone who wants it.
The state is also working to reach populations through other means, like pop-up sites. The state and healthcare company Matrix paired with Feeding Tampa Bay to help underserved Floridians.
“Every Saturday morning at Hillsborough Community College, we do a significant distribution to around 3,000 families. And we've been doing that for, gosh, a year now," said Thomas Mantz, the president and CEO of Feeding Tampa Bay.
"And so we were approached by the state to say, hey, you've got a lot of folks in line, can we partner with you and use some of your traffic routing to get folks into a line for vaccinations? And of course, we're happy to help."
They gave out all 500 of their available vaccines.
Mantz said, “But from our perspective, the issue is not so much how it went, it's that it went right. We're always happy when we can make sure that those we serve have access to services that the rest of us can maybe get elsewhere.”
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