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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Jacksonville will be forced to close two city-administered COVID-19 vaccine sites by the end of Thursday if it does not receive more doses.
During a press conference Tuesday afternoon, Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry said city sites will run out of vaccine supplies by the end of Thursday, and it’s unclear when those sites will be able to reopen. -se.
“We’re ready to open more sites, if (if it’s important) if supplies are available,” Curry said. “Keep in mind that the city of Jacksonville does not control the supply chain or what is available. Although the state of Florida determines who receives their weekly endowment and how much, they don’t even know how much they will receive weekly. ”
Curry said the 8,000 people who have already received the first dose at one of the two sites will still be able to get their second dose.
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Curry said the entire state received 275,000 units of the vaccine last week. He added to the state every seven days how many doses of vaccine Florida will receive the following week, and that number has varied each time.
Leon Haley, CEO of UF Health Jacksonville, said he faces the same problem.
“We too will probably be out of the vaccine this week if we don’t get a second round,” Haley said.
Among UF Health hospitals in Jacksonville and Gainesville, Haley said, about 35,000 health care workers and patients have received at least their first dose in the last month.
Haley said the city is still firmly in the middle of the second wave of COVID-19 infections, but recently there have been some encouraging signs.
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As of Tuesday, there were 510 patients with COVID-19 in Jacksonville hospitals, 68 of them with a ventilator and 120 of them in intensive care units. On Monday, there were a total of 536 patients.
“So the good news is that we’re starting to see a bit of a turnaround in the way hospitals and hospitalizations are happening across the city,” Haley said. “The mayor mentioned that the positivity rate in the city of Jacksonville is now 8.4%. It’s okay because just two weeks ago it was 15%.”
Monday was the first time less than 10,000 cases were reported in a day since Dec. 28, when 8,198 cases were reported.
Curry said the state site of the Prime Osborn Convention Center will still offer vaccines and the state plans to begin administering vaccines at Regency Square Mall sometime in the future.
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