More COVID vaccines coming to the Keys, health leaders say — but it won’t meet demand

David Goodhue
·2 min read

Monroe County is expected to receive another 600 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine in coming weeks, according to Monroe County’s top health official.

Bob Eadie, administrator of the Florida Department of Health in the Keys, said Monday that officials in the island chain, as well as businesses like Publix, have developed systems to vaccinate a large number of people — but the supply isn’t coming fast enough.

“We have the logistics set up. We have the manpower. We’re just lacking a reliable source of the vaccine,” Eadie said during a conference call with Emergency Management and other county officials.

Out of the allocation the Keys are anticipating this week, the health department is expected to receive 100 doses. And, Publix is expecting 250 doses at its Key West store and 250 more at its store in Islamorada to continue its vaccination efforts. Publix also is vaccinating at more than 200 other locations in Florida, but not in Miami-Dade or Broward.

“This is the allocation for the next several weeks,” Eadie said in a text message to FLKeysNews and the Miami Herald.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ policy for distributing the vaccine prioritizes getting it to people 65 years old and older first. The state allocates doses it receives from the federal government to counties based on the percentages of senior citizens living there, Eadie said.

DeSantis said during a news conference in Key Largo Friday that the state has the ability to distribute far more vaccines than it has received so far from the federal government.

Shannon Weiner, director of Monroe County’s Emergency Management, said so far, about 4,529 Keys senior citizens have received at least the first shot of the two-shot regimen, which is about a quarter of the older demographic in the archipelago.

“I think we’re doing a very good job of getting people vaccinated once we have them,” Weiner said during the meeting.

In total, 5,288 people in the Keys have received the first dose of the vaccine and 323 have gotten the second jab, Cathy Crane, the county’s director of veteran’s affairs, said on Monday’s conference call.

According to the latest information from the Department of Health, 5,184 people in the Florida Keys have tested positive for the novel coronavirus since the pandemic started in March. Thirty-nine people have died from the virus.