The Holiday Park COVID-19 vaccine site welcomes seniors without prior appointment

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Demand for the COVID-19 vaccine is so high that by two o’clock on Thursday morning there were already drivers in line at Holiday Park in Fort Lauderdale.

At the moment, Holiday Park is inoculating people who are 65 or older in order of arrival, so it has forced them to close and reopen during the day to avoid overcrowding.

“We don’t want to create any traffic hazards on US-1, so we close it when we fill up and when it opens, we’ll let more people in,” said Chris Lagerbloom, Fort Lauderdale City Manager.

Finally, public health officials plan to turn the vacation park site into an appointment only. The decision not to request appointments is a consequence of the inability of Broward residents to make appointments online.

The Holiday Park site is open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday. But on Thursday there were so many people who were forced to close temporarily at 1 p.m.

Dave Altneu made the cut.

“Right now, we’re in good shape as soon as we get it,” Altneu said. You will still need to receive a second vaccine to have 95% protection.

Drivers with labels from other states also lined up at the Fort Lauderdale site because Gov. Ron DeSantis does not require proof of residency to receive the vaccine in Florida.

“We don’t really discriminate who gets the vaccines,” Lagerbloom said.

The average waiting time for those who made the cut was two hours.

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