You’ve been vaccinated for COVID-19? The next challenge: Getting your second shot

Minutes after receiving his COVID-19 vaccination at a county park Wednesday, Lane Middleton, 68, rolled down his window to show the white card telling him he’ll need a second shot sometime after Feb. 10 to complete the immunization process and start contemplating life without coronavirus dread.

“Zoom is my middle name,” the Miami Shores lawyer said, from the parking lot of the appointment-only vaccination site set up at Tropical Park. “I haven’t been out to lunch since March.”

State and local officials insist Middleton shouldn’t worry about that second, final dose being available when it’s time.

The administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis is instructing local governments and hospitals, as well as the state health department, to vaccinate as many people who are 65 and over as possible and count on the federal vaccine supply chain to provide the needed second doses for people three to four weeks later.

“As of right now, there should be zero concern,” he told reporters this week. “People should rest assured that our policy in Florida is to get out the second dose.”

State statistics report about 700,000 people have received COVID-19 vaccine injections statewide. Of those, about 9% are considered “fully immunized” after receiving second doses. About 2% — more than 15,000 people — are listed as “overdue” for not having a second dose within the recommended time frame.

Miami-Dade sites are using both of the vaccines approved in the United States, and federal guidelines call for at least three or four weeks between the two doses. The two vaccines also shouldn’t be interchanged, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. So someone receiving a Pfizer-BioNTech injection shouldn’t sign up for a follow-up shot using a Moderna dose.

Information released by the CDC said the window between the two doses is designed to prevent second vaccinations from occurring too quickly to be effective. But there is no “maximum interval” on how long someone can wait between doses, according to the CDC.

The Trump administration had been reserving vaccine doses for second-round injections, but changed policy this week to expand the number of people getting their first vaccination shots. That increases the stakes for drugmakers to produce more doses in the coming weeks or risk having to slow down the availability of first-round injections in order to provide second doses for people already partially vaccinated.

Justin Senior, the state’s former Medicaid director and president of the Safety Net Hospital Alliance of Florida, said there is still little known about how the federal government’s change in distribution methods will affect the state.

Senior said the hospitals his group represents — including Broward Health System, Memorial Healthcare System, Jackson Health System and Mount Sinai Medical Center — have the capacity to do about 45,000 shots per day statewide. But that pace would change if hospitals couldn’t count on a steady supply of second doses, he said.

“It’s a supply issue, pure and simple,” he said.

At the state-run Hard Rock vaccination site, people who arrive for their vaccination appointments are given the same kind of card that Middleton received at the county’s Tropical Park site. It includes the date when the next vaccination window begins.

Margaret Thompson, 73, snagged one of the coveted vaccine slots at Hard Rock Stadium, and left with January 29th on her card. She reported being told by a site worker to go home and book an appointment on the same online portal she used to reserve her first slot.

“That never materialized,” said Thompson, who lives in Miami. “There was nothing, I check every day about 25 times.”

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Thompson said she has called the state Department of Health, the governor’s office, as well as the offices of Miami Mayor Francis Suarez and Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava for clarity on what she should do.

“I’m going to find a way to get it if it kills me,” Thompson said.

A spokeswoman for Florida’s Division of Emergency Management, which oversees vaccine distribution, said recipients like Thompson should wait to hear back on booking the second appointment, which shouldn’t occur before the date on the card.

Healthcare workers and senior citizens who get vaccinated will have their contact information uploaded into SHOTS, a system the state is using to keep track of who is getting a vaccine and when their next dose needs to be.

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Patients will then be contacted, either by phone or email, about two weeks after their first dose to schedule their booster shot, Emergency Management spokeswoman Samantha Bequer said in an email. She said Hard Rock Stadium will eventually be able to schedule the second appointment on-site but that the process is still in the works.

For the county-run vaccination sites — Zoo Miami is scheduled to join Tropical Park as an appointment-only, drive-thru location later in the week — people should expect to receive an email about a second appointment after receiving the first vaccination.

Miami-Dade Fire Chief Alan Cominsky, whose agency oversees the county vaccine operation, said people vaccinated at county sites should expect to hear about a second appointment “about a week” before the date listed on the card they’re given after receiving the first injection.

“There are processes we have set up to make sure nobody falls through the cracks,” he said.

Daily vaccination statistics published by Miami-Dade show about 13% of the more than 85,000 doses injected countywide involved second shots. That’s about the same portion of completed vaccinations at the county’s Jackson Health hospital system, where roughly 15% of the more than 31,000 vaccines injected were second doses, spokesperson Lidia Amoretti said.

“We are following directions. We are giving vaccine as fast as we get it,” Jackson CEO Carlos Migoya said in early January, when the hospital announced public vaccinations by appointment. “We’re not holding back any vaccine, because the supplies are coming.”

Addressing reporters in Tropical Park Thursday, Levine Cava said the anxiety over second doses reflects the overall problem of Florida’s most populous county not having enough vaccine supply to meet demand.

“We need more sites. We need more vaccine,” she said. “People are ready to get on with their lives.”

Miami Herald staff writer Michelle Marchante contributed to this report.

This article was updated to correct the name of Lane Middleton, the Miami Shores lawyer who received a vaccine dose at Tropical Park on Wednesday.