Seniors wait hours in long lines for vaccine doses. Here s what s being done to fix it Samantha J. Gross, Michelle Marchante, and Ana Claudia Chacin, The Miami Herald
Feb. 4 As Florida s vaccine rollout for seniors 65 and older continues into its second month, the kinks that caused problems early on are being worked out.
Guidance for how to set up second doses is supposed to be streamlined. New lanes are being planned to augment capacity at drive-in sites where lines have been so long that some seniors have run out of gas waiting. A statewide portal has begun centralizing sign-ups and there are more phone numbers to call for help.
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. – Authorities are asking anyone with an appointment for the COVID-19 vaccine at Hard Rock Stadium to arrive no earlier than 30 minutes before their appointment.
There have been long lines at 347 Don Shula Dr., in Miami Gardens, since March when coronavirus testing began. The site started to distribute COVID-19 vaccines about three weeks ago and those lines are also stretching for hours.
According to Mike Jachles, the chair of the Florida Association of Public Information Officers, people who received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at Hard Rock Stadium could show up without an appointment as long as they had their CDC shot card and it was no earlier than the 21 days required from the first to the second dose for the Pfizer-BioNTech.
“I had an appointment,” Goldberg said. “It says 1-29. I had an appointment.”
But, she says when she finally got close enough to check in, she was told she didn’t have an appointment.
“He said ‘where’s your email’”Goldberg said. “We said ‘what email? We never got emails.’ He said ‘you’re not on the list, leave.’”
Goldberg is one of many who waited in long lines which wrapped around the stadium only to be sent away.
“There are going to be hiccups,” said Mike Jachles, chair of the Florida Association of Public Information Officers. “Things are going to fall through the cracks.”
Hurry-up-and-wait was the name of the game again for people converging Wednesday on Regency Square mall in Jacksonville when it became the newest COVID-19 vaccination site.
As that site opened, the state and the city of Jacksonville moved to start winding down vaccinations at three other sites: the Prime Osborn Convention Center in downtown, the Mandarin Senior Center and the Lane Wiley Senior Center on the Westside.
By mid-day Wednesday, about 300 people stood in line to get shots at the Regency Square site, hours after the state began taking appointments by telephone for Florida residents 65 and older and front-line health care workers.
Hard Rock Stadium became the first state run, drive-thru, appointment-only location in Florida where seniors could stay in their car to get a COVID-19 vaccine. But the lines were long.