“It’s like a time bomb – you’re just waiting,” Walsh told CNN.
Her mother, Marie Schreiner, lives in a community unit in the Tampa area that was recently blocked because of a Covid-19 case. Walsh says he made hundreds of calls to government agencies looking for information on how to get the vaccine, but it has gotten nowhere.
Distribution of the Covid-19 vaccine in Florida started without a hitch four weeks ago, with healthcare professionals getting their first injections. A week later, elderly people living in long-term care facilities started receiving the vaccine. That was when Walsh thought his mother would have one.
As doses of vaccines flowed to Florida by the tens of thousands, Governor Ron DeSantis signed an executive distribution order. Instead of following the guidelines of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to prioritize essential workers and those over 75, he offered the vaccine to all 4.5 million seniors aged 65 and over.
When CNN asked DeSantis what was wrong with the vaccine implantation in his state, he stopped and said the demand was high. After a contentious exchange, during which he told CNN to investigate why the elderly camped overnight, he blamed local hospitals and health officials.
“These guys [local hospitals] are much more competent to provide health services than a state government could ever be, “he said.
But Broward County Mayor Steve Geller says it is the state government that is still in charge, with a governor giving unrealistic expectations.
While he receives emails and calls from constituents who blame him for the mess, vaccines are being delivered to the so-called Florida Department of Health in Broward. This department does not report to him, but to the state and DeSantis.
“He inadvertently seems to have given the elderly an inaccurate belief that they can register immediately for the vaccine, and that everyone can get the vaccine now,” said Geller of the governor.
Joyce Fish, 82 with cancer, is among those who want the vaccine now. She is battling multiple myeloma. Once vaccinated, she and her husband Jack want to visit their new great-grandchild. But they are frustrated with all the bureaucracy and delays.
“As far as the vaccine is concerned, I don’t know where we are, I really don’t know,” Fish told CNN. “I don’t know how long it will take. I don’t know when it will be, and it’s a little scary. You just want to know that in three weeks, you’ll be able to get an appointment.”
“The state gave doses to specific hospitals that produced distribution plans. This was not an efficient or effective way of doing distribution, ”she said by email.
She said the state needs to be involved so that the size of the population of target and at-risk people in each municipality is known, facilitating the delivery of vaccines there. DeSantis goes on to say that the state must be intercepted.
This creates opportunities for some seniors.
Joy Dzieginski waited in line for about 14 hours outside the Regional Lake Library in Fort Myers.
“This is our only hope of getting back to normal, so we are going for it,” Dzieginski told CNN.
She kept warm wrapped in a blanket and compared the experience to spending the entire night before buying Christmas gifts on Black Friday.
But others are in limbo – they are not sick enough for a specialist ward, they are not in a position to sit in line. And the lack of information about when the vaccine will be available is running out of patience.
Walsh, for example, who is trying to help her 92-year-old mother, said she would have sat in line for her, but she thought she and other vulnerable residents of assisted living facilities would be a priority for vaccination after doctors and nursing home residents.
“If they said to me, ‘Why don’t you take your mother and put her on the line for a chance’? I would have done that,” she told CNN. “But I assumed that these facilities were the first.”
Walsh says he called DeSantis’ office asking why seniors like his mother are still waiting, while those with less exposure were vaccinated. But she says she never got an answer.
CNN tried to ask DeSantis the same question during its last press conference in Miami. He did not accept the question and left.