In the last week, we saw thousands of people in our area get the COVID-19 vaccine, despite a rising number of cases of the virus.
Do you remember when the state hit 1 million cases on Dec. 1? Just over 11,000 new cases were reported Sunday, but Florida also surpassed a million people vaccinated on Sunday.
People ages 65 and older have been the priority for vaccines.
“I can tell you the sense of relief that a 73-year-old gets from this is not the same as a 20-year-old healthy worker somewhere. So we’re putting our parents first, our grandparents first,” said Governor DeSantis.
Here in Duval County, vaccine distribution expanded over the last week with multiple sites administering shots to hundreds of people. With nearly 75,000 cases in Duval, and over 50,000 people vaccinated, the percent positivity for new cases is at 9.3%.
Across the state, 22,800 doses were given Saturday and nearly 916,000 people have now received their first dose and just over 90,000 people have both shots.
Surrounding counties are starting more vaccine distributions as well, like Ascension St. Vincent’s at the Clay County Fairgrounds, and Publix pharmacies in St. Johns and Flagler County.
“105 Publix so far in the program, over 750 statewide, as we get more vaccines, you want it to be in some others counties, we’ll do it. Some people asked why you’re doing some of the counties you’re doing; there’s some counties that have really big health infrastructure, Orlando, Jacksonville, has big infrastructure, a lot of hospitals. We looked at counties that may be more medium-sized and have a lot of elderly people,” said DeSantis.
The statewide positivity rate based on Saturday’s testing was 5.09% -- the lowest so far this year.
As of Sunday afternoon, more than 7,000 people were hospitalized in the state. Duval added six deaths to the new total of 806. The state now has 24,515, an increase of 135.