MANATEE COUNTY – After weeks of waiting, seniors and others qualified to receive a COVID-19 vaccine are finally about to see some relief as more shots make their way to the county.
The county-run vaccination site at Tom Bennett Park, 280 Kay Road, Bradenton, has 5,100 first doses for seniors this week, according to Manatee County Public Safety Director Jacob Saur. With 4,500 more doses arriving at a state-run vaccination site coming online today at the county’s Public Safety Center at 2101 47th Terrace E., Bradenton, a total of 9,600 first-dose vaccine appointments for seniors are scheduled.
With both vaccination sites running, Saur says he hopes to reduce the county’s vaccine standby pool from 90,000 to near zero by the end of March.
At the state-run site, Saur said the plan is to give 1,000 first doses per day, five days a week for four weeks followed by four weeks of second doses.
All the appointments at the county- and state-run sites are filled at random from those registered in the county’s standby waiting pool. Recipients can expect to receive a text from 88911 or a call from 941-742-4300 to confirm their appointment. Recipients who do not confirm their appointment within two hours will be put back in the waiting pool.
Thanks to changes in the qualifications to receive a COVID-19 vaccination in the state of Florida, more people are now eligible to receive shots. Florida residents 65 and older continue to be qualified to receive the shot and are joined by residents and staff at long-term care facilities, frontline healthcare workers who have direct patient contact, law enforcement officers and firefighters age 50 and older, daycare workers, and pre-kindergarten through 12th-grade teachers. Teachers age 50 and older can get their COVID-19 vaccinations through the state-run site while teachers younger than 50 can get them from retail pharmacy locations.
Anyone with an underlying condition that makes them susceptible to the novel coronavirus also is eligible to receive the vaccine from retail pharmacy locations with a letter of authorization from their doctor on this form.
Currently, only seniors 65 and older, first responders and healthcare workers are eligible to receive the vaccine at the Manatee County site. To register for those standby waiting pools, call 311 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, or register online.
Everyone else who is deemed eligible by the state to receive the first dose of the vaccine can register online for appointments at local CVS, Publix, Walgreens, Walmart and Winn-Dixie locations.
To register online for an appointment at an area CVS location, visit the company’s COVID-19 information webpage.
Publix locations are releasing appointment times to the public online every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 7 a.m. To register for one of these appointments, visit the company online.
For appointments at Walgreens locations, visit their COVID-19 page.
Appointments at Walmart are available here.
Appointments at local Winn-Dixie locations can be scheduled online here.
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