U.S. Congressman Blames Governor For Failed Vaccine Rollout

CLEARWATER, FL —While it made great fodder for late-night comedians, Pinellas County senior citizens didn't appreciate the joke.

The tears in their eyes weren't from laughter but the result of frustration and anger as 247,648 Pinellas residents age 65 and up tried to dial in to the Department of Health-Pinellas County Monday to claim one of 400 doses of coronavirus vaccine.

Like many residents, Lisa Shields began dialing in one minute before the second hand on her watch struck 12 (the system was scheduled to go online at noon). She desperately wanted to get a vaccination for her 86-year-old father.

Three hours later, Shields and fellow residents were still trying to register.

The DOH-Pinellas finally shut the system down. Officials apologized to residents, explaining that the volume of calls had simply overwhelmed the system.

Residents like Cyndia Fernandez Hixon, however, weren't in the mood for apologies.

"Poor planning," she said. "The logistics should have been planned out weeks ago and ready to go."

U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist, D-St. Petersburg, agreed, blasting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis's administration for not having a reasonable plan in place to distribute the vaccine.

"And yet, in all of Pinellas, as the pandemic is surging, just one person received a vaccination on Jan 3," Crist said. "Why on Earth are we in this position? We all knew this day was coming – for months. The state’s health department exists to coordinate policy and strategy at a statewide level."

Under the state's vaccination plan, DeSantis said first responders, front-line health workers and residents in long-term nursing facilities would get first shot at the coronavirus vaccines.

On Dec. 23, DeSantis signed an executive order implementing the second phase of the vaccine rollout, which is restricted to residents age 65 and over, the population that's considered most vulnerable to fatal health impacts from the virus.

The problem is Florida ranks second in the nation behind Maine for the percentage of residents age 65 and up. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 21 percent of Florida's 21,477,737 residents fall within that age range.

As a result, when registration opened Monday, more than one million Florida seniors were eligible to receive the vaccine. But the state had only received 367,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine and 300,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine. And 68,133 of those doses had already gone to first responders, health-care workers and nursing home residents.

Crist said it was folly for the state to open registration to all residents age 65 and up. Even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention realized the impossibility of the task and recommended that the second round of vaccines be restricted to those age 75 years and older.

Clearwater resident Mark Horn said you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that there simply weren't enough doses to go around. By setting up an internet site and phone bank for the entire senior population, the government was setting itself up to fail.

He noted that the DOH-Pinellas was well aware it had only 400 doses of vaccine available when it invited its 247,648 residents age 65 and up to register for the vaccine.

"Figure out how many vaccination slots are available per day (e.g. 400), then decide how to identify a slice of 400-500 people and invite those people to register," he said.

Horn suggested basing priorities on need, as established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health. For instance, a 95-year-old woman with liver disease would have priority over a 65-year-old senior who does yoga in the morning and golfs in the afternoon.

"Opening up registration to 250,000 people when there are only 400 slots available was idiotic," he said. "The health department deserves to have their butts handed to them. It is the height of hubris to expect that number of people to just figure it out for themselves; to determine just how patient they will need to be, so they don't have to waste massive amounts of time just to be told 'no.' Telling people to be patient is not a plan."

Other residents suggested vaccinating by age group with those age 90 and up going first or vaccinating by ZIP code.

Shortly after Pinellas County shut down its vaccine registration system, Hillsborough and Pasco counties followed, equally overwhelmed by the number of requests.

To further complicate matters, some counties set up vaccine registrations through the online calendar site, Eventbrite, including the health departments in Brevard, Collier, Flagler and Sarasota counties. Those legitimate sites were followed by a series of bogus Eventbrite registration sites, some of which charged residents to register. Officials in Pinellas and Pasco counties were forced to issue a warning telling residents that their Eventbrite registrations were not valid.

Crist compared the fiasco to the state Department of Employment Opportunity's bungled attempt to register thousands of residents for unemployment benefits when the pandemic was declared in March. The system was inundated with applications and the state had to shut it down and revise it.

"Just like unemployment in the spring, many of the registration systems, including in Pinellas, crashed immediately. The website has been pulled down and phone lines continue to be jammed," Crist said.

On Monday, the same day Florida seniors unsuccessfully attempted to dial in for vaccine appointments, DeSantis held a news conference announcing that he's ordered the Florida Division of Emergency Management to work with the Florida Department of Health to identify which of the 19 state-run testing sites can be converted into vaccine sites. The order includes hiring 1,000 contracted nurses to supplement 800 Florida National Guardsmen who were deployed to state testing sites.

DeSantis also hopes to recruit hospitals, service organizations and faith-based communities to help in the effort. The following day, churches throughout Pinellas County received email requests from the county asking if they would volunteer to host vaccination clinics.

Crist wasn't impressed with DeSantis's solution to the debacle.

"For months, we’ve known that America’s only way out of this pandemic would be rapid, coordinated distribution of a vaccine," he said. "We all knew this day was coming – for months. The State’s Health Department exists to coordinate policy and strategy at a statewide level."

He said DeSantis's plan to vaccinate the population is no plan at all.

"To date, like testing before it, no detailed plan or strategy for vaccine administration has been released, at either the federal or state level," Crist said. "Now, Gov. DeSantis is placing the burden on our hospitals to work among themselves to devise and conduct vaccine administration – a patchwork of systems struggling with escalating COVID-19 hospitalizations."

See related stories:

Pinellas Shuts Down Vaccine Registration Process; Seniors Alarmed

Mad Dash For Vaccine Leaves Pinellas Seniors Irate, Irked