SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. – Seminole County is marking a major milestone this week as it begins administering second doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to the public on Monday.
Seminole County became the first county in the state to offer the vaccine publicly on Dec. 28, 2020. It opened the vaccination site at the Oviedo Mall four weeks ago.
County officials expect around 200 people will return to the site to complete their vaccinations on Monday. Emergency Manager Alan Harris said this is an exciting time for the county.
“It’s a lot of hope. This is something we’ve been waiting for for months and months and months and to see that we are getting to the completion for some individuals and they’re going to have up to 90 something percent immunity to the virus, that is amazing,” Harris said.
Harris said the biggest challenge they are facing is they are not getting enough vaccine. He said this week they’re expecting to get 1,900 doses, which is half of what they got last week. He said the county got almost 6,000 doses the first week of January.
“If they’re cut in half again, we’re really going to shut down operations. There’s nothing for us to do. We’ll continue the second doses, but the first doses we’re not going to be able to do because we continually get cut by the state on vaccine allotment,” Harris said.
Harris said they can do thousands of vaccines at the site every day.
“We’re getting a couple thousand for an entire week. It’s almost impossible to plan for the future when you have so little vaccine coming to the county,” he said. “I hope the state will change course and get us back up to the numbers where we were before.”
Harris said the online registration to make vaccination appointments should open again sometime this week.