WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Palm Beach County will receive 20,000 doses of the highly anticipated COVID-19 vaccine, officials announced on Tuesday.
Dr. Alina Alonso, the health director for Palm Beach County, said the county is due to receive a large shipment of a vaccine produced by Moderna. However, she didn't give a specific timeline for when that shipment will get here.
"I'm ready to receive that vaccine and I'm ready to roll out with it," Alonso told county commissioners.
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An advisory committee for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will meet on Thursday to decide whether to recommend the Moderna vaccine for an emergency use authorization.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he expects full FDA approval by Friday, with the initial shipments of the Moderna vaccine arriving in Florida between Sunday and Tuesday of next week.
"Having the vaccine is an extraordinary opportunity that we have," Alonso said.
The very first shipments of a COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer began arriving in South Florida on Monday. Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami-Dade County and Memorial Healthcare System in Broward County are among five hospital systems in Florida that are receiving an initial allotment of the vaccine.
Alonso said that when the Florida Department of Health in Palm Beach County receives 20,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine, it will be distributed to high-risk, high-contact frontline health care workers and long-term care facilities first.
"I do not have the names and the places of where we're gonna go yet," Alonso said, adding that the logistics of the operation are "complicated" and "precise."
After frontline health care workers and long-term care facilities, the Moderna vaccine will then be distributed to first responders like law enforcement officers and firefighters, as well as "additional priority groups." However, it's unclear who will be in those priority groups.
"The general population, we've been saying since the beginning, will probably not start being vaccinated like in your doctor's office and so forth until around April, or maybe even longer," Alonso said.
The health director warned the public that the vaccine is not a "magic bullet," and you could still get a milder form of COVID-19 even after getting vaccinated.
"This is gonna take time, at least a year between starting a vaccination and having herd immunity. It might take more than a year," Alonso said.
Herd immunity is when at least 70% of the population has either contracted the virus or gotten vaccinated, according to Alonso. Until herd immunity is reached, Alonso said the public needs to continue wearing face masks, practicing social distancing, washing and sanitizing your hands frequently, and avoiding crowded, enclosed spaces.
"There's still a lot of information we don't have. There's still a lot of plans to do," Alonso said. "Everybody can't get vaccinated at the same time. This is gonna be a slow process, very slow process as this vaccine comes through and people get it."
In an optimistic note, Alonso said Palm Beach County is currently on a "down trend" for the holidays in terms of new COVID-19 cases.
The county averaged 512 new COVID-19 cases per day from Dec. 7 to 13, which is down from an average of 552 new cases between Nov. 30 to Dec. 6.
Palm Beach County's daily COVID-19 positivity rate was 5.67% on Dec. 13, the first time it's been down to 5% in three weeks, according to Alonso. Health officials aim to keep that positivity rate below 5% because that allows for more effective contact tracing.
