| Sarasota Herald-Tribune
The Sarasota County Health Department began accepting appointments on Sunday afternoon for 800 vacancies available on Monday for the COVID-19 vaccination.
The county made the announcement at about 3 pm, about 30 minutes before the opening of the booking system, and made the booking locations available only online.
At 4:15, all slots were gone.
Sunday’s rapid turnaround reflected what happened over the past week in the area, when the COVID vaccine became available to the general public for people aged 65 and over.
Sarasota received 3,500 doses of the COVID-19 Moderna vaccine on Tuesday morning, and whenever there were openings since then, they were swallowed quickly.
Similar problems have occurred in Manatee County. The state also provided the manatee with 3,500 doses of the Moderna vaccine, and consultations are scheduled to date.
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Shortly after 10 am on Tuesday, less than 24 hours before vaccinations began at the Public Safety Center in Bradenton, the Florida Department of Health in Manatee County announced it had already reached capacity for the number of vaccines available.
The scarcity of available places left people angry and frustrated.
To help people who have trouble accessing the online system, libraries and county health departments are available. And Goodwill Manasota has two social workers helping seniors to save time on their main campus on US 301.
For now, vaccinations are limited to frontline health professionals and people aged 65 and over. Whoever receives the vaccine must stay in the municipality for 28 days to do the second round of the vaccine.
In Sarasota, vaccinations are taking place at the William L. Little Health and Human Services building at 2200 Ringling Blvd. Drive-thru vaccinations are being done at Manatee in Bennett Park, 400 Cypress Creek Blvd. in Bradenton.
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