Maybe it was the hats.
Or the gloves the two women wore, although temperatures in Orlando, Florida on Wednesday fluctuated in their 60s.
In a scene from a sitcom, the women went to a coronavirus vaccination site “dressed as grandparents,” said Dr. Raul Pino, Orange County health administrator, at a news conference on Thursday. Except they were 34 and 44, no more than 65, so despite their suits, which included glasses, they were not qualified to take the pictures in Florida.
However, the ploy may have worked before. The women presented valid cards from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicating that they had already received their first doses of vaccine, said Pino, who did not provide them. “I don’t know how they escaped the first time,” he said.
Florida vaccinated about 42 percent of its more than 4.4 million people aged 65 and over, according to the state, and health professionals and people with some underlying illnesses can also get the vaccines. It is unclear when the administration of Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican, will consider that a sufficient number of these populations have been vaccinated to open eligibility more broadly.
The state is one of many where vaccines are in high demand due to delayed shipments due to weather delays.
Young people, teachers, police officers and other essential workers are all clamoring for doses, but Florida has not said which group to prioritize next.
The agencies that administer the injections need to be “very careful” with people “pretending,” said Pino. “It’s probably taller than we suspect,” he said, adding that at least one man too young for a shot tried to impersonate his father, who had the same name.
“Our job as a health department is to vaccinate as many people as possible, as quickly as possible,” said Pino, adding that the state’s Department of Health was following the governor’s priorities, which are based on the modified CDC guidelines.
On Wednesday, Health Department officials asked sheriff’s delegates to issue invasion notices to women in hats, whose birth dates did not match those they had used to register vaccines, said a spokesman for the bureau’s office. sheriff.
They were not charged with any wrongdoing. But they did not receive the vaccine.