SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. – After President Joe Biden announced on Tuesday his administration plans to ramp up COVID-19 vaccine supply and notice given to states about upcoming shipments, a Central Florida county is saying more vaccines are needed.
Seminole County Emergency Manager Alan Harris said one of their biggest challenges is determining how many vaccines the county will receive and when.
“The local jurisdictions need to set up appointments. They need to set up staffing (and) volunteers, and going from week to week, not knowing what will come into the community, is extremely difficult,” Harris said.
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Biden also said he would provide a “reliable three-week forecast” of how many doses a state can expect to receive.
Harris said that Seminole has the resources to vaccinate 2,000 people a day but received less than that amount this week for first-time doses. He added that shipments over the past three weeks have been decreasing nearly 50 percent.
“Next week, we did open up the calendar and there are days that we are closed down for first doses, simply because there is no vaccine to give,” Harris said.
On Tuesday, Biden said the federal government will increase its weekly COVID-19 vaccine shipments from 8.6 million doses to at least 10 million doses.
Along with using the Defense Production Act and acquiring the purchase of another 200 million vaccine doses, Biden said vaccines should become more readily available.