JACKSONVILLE, Fla — **UPDATE: Gov. DeSantis says Walgreens will vaccinate staff and residents at long-term care facilities Friday in Jacksonville
Moderna is now the second pharmaceutical company to receive emergency use authorization for its coronavirus vaccine.
The process is mirroring what Pfizer went through last week. It still needs full approval from the Food and Drug Administration before the vaccine can be shipped and CDC approval before injections can start.
According to Governor Ron DeSantis's office, Florida should receive 367,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine next week.
Nursing home and assisted living residents are next in line with health care workers to be more widely vaccinated. The owner of several Jacksonville assisted living facilities says she got chills talking about a vaccine and a woman whose mother is in an assisted living facility teared up talking about it.
However, a timeline for when nursing homes and assisted living facilities will get vaccines isn't written in stone.
On Wednesday, the first residents at long-term care facilities got vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine in several counties south of Jacksonville. DeSantis said then that CVS and Walgreens, which are working with nursing homes, may start giving their 60,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine Monday; however, Thursday night announced on Twitter Walgreens will begin vaccinations at long-term care facilities Friday.
The Moderna vaccine will go to 173 Florida hospitals that did not receive the Pfizer vaccine, including a dozen on the First Coast and in Gainesville.
All of this can't come soon enough for those with loved ones in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.
"She doesn't understand covid," said Candace Mabry. "All she knew is that I wasn't visiting her."
Visits through windows were confusing Mabry's mother because her mother has dementia. Her mother will be getting the coronavirus vaccine.
"Relieved I made a decision but it was hard," said Mabry. "It has to be done."
The decision to get vaccinated is one she hopes more people make to protect their own mothers.
"It's a new beginning is how I look at it," said Jamie Glavich, CEO of Almost Home Senior Services.
Unlike the Pfizer vaccine that must be kept at almost negative 100 degrees, the Moderna vaccine can be stored in a regular freezer. This lessens the worries Glavich has about distribution.
"You worry about the timing," said Glavich. "Everything has to be so precise. Having the vaccine where it will be easier for them to administer and they won't have to worry about all that timing, I think it's going to be better for us."
Walgreens and CVS will come to do vaccination clinics at her facilities. Glavich hopes to get the vaccine for her residents next week but does not have an exact date.
It's a moment long-awaited.
"We've just been on edge and it seems like everybody is really hurt," Glavich said about this year.
She is ready for 2020's hurt and isolation to end. Forty percent of Florida's more than 20,000 COVID-19 deaths are linked to long-term care facilities, according to Florida Department of Health data.
For Mabry, a vaccine means her mother is safer and there are fewer restrictions to go see her. How will that feel for her and so many others?
"Wonderful," Mabry said. "It makes my whole day."