01/21/2021 21:27
Clarín.com
World
Updated 01/21/2021 9:27 PM
Once the news was known about the number of people who traveled to the United States to get vaccinated for free, the health authorities of Florida, the state that received the most "vaccination tourism", announced this Thursday that from now on Florida residents will have priority receive the doses against the coronavirus.
Florida's chief surgeon, Scott A. Rivkees, has issued an order that requires vaccine providers
to require recipients to prove residency in the state.
According to data from the Florida Department of Health, of the more than 1.1 million doses of covid-19 vaccines already applied in that southern state,
more than 39,000 were received by non-residents.
Before the decision announced by Rivkees was known, health officials from Florida counties such as Volusia and Seminole had told the media that they already had "authorization" to require proof of residency from candidates for vaccination.
Until now they could only be asked to prove with a document that they are over 65 years old.
That is why some Argentines traveled to the southern United States to get vaccinated.
One of them was the famous lawyer Ana Rosenfeld who, together with her husband, applied the dose of Moderna.
The journalist
Yanina Latorre also
said that her 80-year-old mother Dora traveled with her mother, who took her turn and managed to get a dose.
But those stories were, for the moment, in the past.
Against this background and after having downplayed "vaccination tourism" for weeks, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said Tuesday that
the vaccine should only be for "permanent or temporary" residents in Florida.
In this way, it included people from other states and countries who have houses and apartments in Florida and spend long periods here, which is an important source of income for the state and tourist cities like Miami.
To prove residency,
individuals will need to show a driver's license, valid Florida identification card, or utility bill
showing a Florida address.
Another problem the authorities speak
of is the shortage of vaccines.
The Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach announced Thursday that it is canceling all vaccination appointments from January 23 onwards
"due to lack of certainty in the supply of the vaccine"
and before that, Baptist Health, the largest hospital group, did the same. of the state.
On the web to get an appointment to go to a vaccination center run by Miami-Dade County, the most populous and the hardest hit by covid-19 in Florida,
there were no appointments available today for any date.
Today it became known that the Florida Department of Health will no longer give information on how many people have received the second dose of the vaccine, only on those vaccinated in total.
The media reported this week that thousands of people have exceeded the 21-day deadline to receive the second dose necessary to ensure the effectiveness of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which are the ones being applied in Florida.
Meanwhile, the covid-19 does not give truce to Florida,
which this Thursday accounted for 12,873 new cases and 161 more deaths
, and is the third state with the most infections (more than 1.6 million) and the fourth with the most deaths (more than 25,000) across the United States.
Source: EFE
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