COVID-19 vaccines given back to Palm Beach after outrage over Publix being sole distributor
After a growing public outrage by Palm Beach County residents and local government officials over COVID-19 vaccines only being administered at Publix stores, the Florida Division of Emergency Management has changed its position.
On Friday, Palm Beach County Commissioner Melissa McKinley tweeted that a change of course from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Publix pilot program was taking place.
Some vaccines solely earmarked for Publix will now be given to the Health Care District of Palm Beach County and Florida Department of Health in Palm Beach County.
The state was supposed to give vaccines to Palm Beach County’s Department of Health to distribute them locally, but then DeSantis announced recently that 67 Publix stores in the county would be the only ones administering the vaccine as part of his new pilot program.
In this program, the state designated Palm Beach as a test county where all vaccines will be funneled through Publix, Dr. Alina Alonso, the state health department director in Palm Beach, told CBS 4.
Many in Florida have publicly criticized the state’s vaccine program for the difficulty people have had in making an appointment and that the state has used only half of its COVID-19 vaccines from the federal government, despite a large share of residents 65 and older.
Those angry calls grew in Palm Beach as the pilot program negatively impacted families in low-income neighborhoods who did not have means to get to a Publix, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported.
One of these frustrated voices was McKinley, the Palm Beach County commissioner.
“I am absolutely disgusted the governor of this state has 100 percent taken the ability to vaccinate our residents in Palm Beach County out of the hands of our public health officials and medical officials and given that authority to a corporate entity,” McKinley said, according to the Sun Sentinel.
This story was originally published January 29, 2021 at 5:47 PM.
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