It seems like just yesterday, residents and elected officials in South Florida were complaining that the state didn’t have enough vaccines to meet the demand in the three counties.
Now, some five months after COVID-19 vaccinations began, the situation is quite the opposite. The state has vaccines, but not enough people in South Florida to take them.
Broward County Mayor Steve Geller says the vaccination rate in the county has slowed dramatically.
“The number of people getting vaccines continues to decline. Over the last 13 days, our average has been somewhere around approximately 4,500 people per day. This is down from 30,000/35,000 a day at our peak. As you can see, the numbers are just not very good,” he said during a COVID-19 community update on May 19.
The slow vaccination rate has caused several sites in Broward and Miami-Dade to close down or change operations. The Hard Rock Stadium in Miami is ending COVID testing to focus more on vaccines.
In Broward, the T.Y. Park and Tradewinds sites are among those that closed this month. Mayor Geller says he is working more with municipal leaders to get residents vaccinated.
Several vaccination sites are still open in the countries across South Florida. But local leaders say they are now shifting focus to pop-up sites in an attempt to provide access to different communities.
