All Florida residents could get in line for a COVID-19 vaccine by April

DORAL, FL – By April all Florida residents, including those who are not considered to be at risk, could start receiving a COVID-19 vaccine shot, according to Gov. Ron DeSantis. 

“If the supply floodgates really open, we could be in a position sometime in April where it’s just available and people can get it,” he said, as reported by Sun Suntinel. 

The announcement was made Thursday afternoon at a news briefing in Lake City where DeSantis unveiled the plan to reach the goal of having vaccines available for all Florida residents as soon as next month. By then, according to him, every CVS and Walgreens in Florida would probably vaccinate people. 

“We have some encouraging signals … so rest assured if you are in that 55 to 59 age bracket we want to lower that very soon as well. We may be able to do that quicker than initially anticipated,” said Florida leader as reported by the media. 

Part of the plan to reach the goal includes making the vaccine available in more Walgreens pharmacies, distributing more doses into Florida pharmacies by next week through a federal program, increasing production of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, of which President Joe Biden will be buying an additional 100 million doses, and open in the coming days several additional senior PODs (points of distribution) in the state to give out the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

“We think it’s good to have a one-dose vaccine in wide circulation in the State of Florida and not have to give a booster shot…We didn’t know if seniors would want the Johnson & Johnson vaccine,” he said. “We have had a real good response.”

In total, Florida received 645,180 doses of the three COVID-19 vaccines from the federal government this week, an increase of nearly 200,000 over the previous week in part because of the arrival of the Johnson & Johnson inoculations, reported Sun Suntinel. 

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