MDC North is now a vaccine site run by feds and walk-ups are welcome

Ralph Morris didn’t have an appointment to Miami’s new federal mass vaccination center, and by lunchtime on Wednesday he had finished the immunization process for COVID-19.

A friend called the 67-year-old retired county transit mechanic and urged him to head over to the vaccination center that opened that morning at Miami Dade College’s North Campus. Appointments are not required. There are enough supplies — 2,000 doses per day — that Morris could choose between two vaccines.

He went with Johnson & Johnson, a newly approved vaccine that doesn’t use the booster shots required a month later for people injected with Pfizer or Moderna doses.

“I don’t want to come back,” Morris said after a U.S. solider deployed to Miami placed a bandage on his arm and directed Morris to wait 15 minutes in a different tent, half full with people who also received their shots.

Morris lucked into a lull following a busy morning, and hours before administrators expected an afternoon rush before the site’s 7 p.m. closing time.

Don’t have to wait hours at new federal MDC vaccine site

“We hope that by word of mouth people realize: ‘I don’t have to wait for two to three hours,’ ” said Marty Bahamonde, spokesman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which manages the site. “It’s easy.”

The federal site follows Florida vaccination rules, and Bahamonde said that includes accepting state forms signed by physicians declaring someone under 65 eligible for a vaccine because of “extreme vulnerability.”

Even so, the first day saw multiple people under 65 report being turned away at the MDC site when they tried to use medical paperwork to receive vaccinations. Jason Mahon, spokesperson for Florida’s Department of Emergency Management, said state policy allows Florida residents to receive vaccinations at the federal site if they bring the state form signed by a doctor. “This site is vaccinating those determined to be extremely vulnerable to COVID-19 by their physician,” he said, provided they have the signed form.

People can register for an appointment through Florida’s statewide registration system myvaccine.fl.gov or by calling 888-499-0840.

Along with the MDC North site, FEMA is overseeing two satellite sites this week: one in Florida City (650 NW Fifth Ave.) and one in Sweetwater (250 SW 114th Ave.)

Those satellite sites are open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and do not require appointments. They are scheduled to close after March 10 in favor of new locations.

The MDC North site operates from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., seven days a week, with no planned closing date.

Most of the doses administered at the site come from Pfizer, meaning most arrivals will need to return after about a month for second doses. Lab results show the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines work more than 90% of the time to prevent someone from contracting COVID-19, compared to about 70% for Johnson & Johnson.

But those scores aren’t definitive, and public health experts have hailed the Johnson & Johnson vaccine as a welcome addition in the race to get the bulk of the U.S. population vaccinated.

In Miami-Dade, about 340,000 people have received at least one vaccination dose, according to county figures, amounting to about 13% of the population in a county with roughly 2.7 million people.

1 of 4 federal vaccination sites in Florida

The MDC site at 11380 NW 27th Ave. is one of four mass vaccination centers that the Biden administration opened Wednesday across Florida. The nearest of the others is in Tampa, with centers also in Orlando and Jacksonville. They’re open to any eligible Florida resident.

About 140 military personnel from Fort Riley, Kansas, and Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina were deployed to Miami for the center. State workers handle the intake, clearing arrivals for vaccinations by the military personnel.

Fermin Vazquez, president of the MDC North Campus, said the school has about 1,000 parking spaces available. Federal workers have golf carts ready to ferry people with difficulty walking from satellite lots. More spaces can be opened if traffic picks up, Vazquez said. “We expect the weekend to be a big draw,” Vazquez said.

The White House said the location was picked in part for the surrounding neighborhoods of residents with low incomes where vaccine rates have been trailing. There is a county bus stop outside the campus entrance, giving transit riders a short walk to the vaccination center.

As 4 p.m. approached Wednesday, the Miami Dade College site had vaccinated about 1,200 people, college spokesperson Juan Mendieta said. Roughly 350 of those vaccinations were Johnson & Johnson doses. He said the pace should put the site on track to distribute all 2,000 doses by closing time at 7 p.m.

Seniors finally get vaccines

Renee Renteria, 91, was a midmorning arrival, ending weeks of frustration for her family trying to secure her a vaccination appointment in a county where local hospitals and drive-up sites were the main options.

“It took her two months,” daughter Martha Estrada said after filming her mother finally receiving a Pfizer dose from a soldier.

Nearby, Ely Benaim, a doctor, and his 80-year-old mother, Berta, were waiting the required 15 minutes to check for side effects from the vaccination. They had opted for the Johnson & Johnson doses, and were already making plans to end a year of isolation from far-off family.

Two of his children, one in Chicago and the other in Memphis, were planning to fly into Miami for a visit after she was vaccinated. It had been more than a year, and the one-shot vaccination the two received Wednesday meant a likely change in plans for an earlier family reunion.

“We’re going to push the tickets up,” Benaim said.

This story was originally published March 3, 2021 at 6:56 PM.