JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Starting Monday, the city of Jacksonville and Logistics Health Inc. will provide free flu vaccinations to Duval County residents and city employees.
The flu shots will be given Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at these locations:
- Lane Wiley Senior Center, 6710 Wiley Road
- Mandarin Senior Center, 3848 Hartley Road
Children must be at least 9 years old to receive a free flu shot at either location.
Both of these centers are currently being used as COVID-19 testing centers. Safety measures will be in place at both locations and flu shots will be administered separately from COVID-19 testing.
Each location will be able to administer up to 80 vaccines a day, with a maximum of 400 per week, per site.
So far, flu season appears to be mild, but health experts are voicing their concerns about the possibility of a “twindemic"-- where flu season would collide with the fight against COVID-19.
On Sunday, 10,105 new COVID-19 cases were reported in Florida, more than 500 of them were in Jacksonville, according to the state’s Department of Health.
News4Jax spoke with a local infectious disease specialist who says people need to understand what is contributing to a spike in cases.
“It’s the fact that we’re still having social gatherings and the lockdown was removed completely across our state,” said Dr. Mohammad Reza. “This virus is tricky in the sense that if you interact with people now, the infection takes about 2 to 14 days if you’re going to have symptoms from this virus. So when you stop all these restrictions, it takes about 3 to 6 weeks to start to see an increase in the spread of the virus.”
More than 226,000 flu vaccines have been given to adults across the First Coast through the FluVaxJax campaign, according to the Duval County Medical Society’s website.