JACKSONVILLE, Fla — On the eve of an FDA Advisory Committee meeting to discuss Emergency Use Authorization of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said the state is ready to distribute the vaccine once it gets the green light.
"We hope we get it soon," DeSantis said. "We're ready to go."
On Tuesday, the governor participated in the Operation Warp Speed Vaccine Summit at the White House.
"We did a governor's panel, and they basically invited us because they thought our plan was good," DeSantis said. "So, we're obviously at the mercy of tomorrow's meeting with the FDA. We think it's going to be positive. We think there'll be an emergency use. Maybe they won't do it tomorrow, but it's certainly soon thereafter and then the doses are ready to ship."
DeSantis made a stop in Jacksonville Wednesday and said the first shipments of the Pfizer vaccine will go to frontline health care workers and long-term care facilities.
"We think we will get allocated about 180,000 individuals in the first round of the Pfizer," DeSantis said. "You're going to have about 100,000 doses go to major hospital systems, and the Pfizer is negative 70 degrees storage, so not everyone can store it."
UF Health Jacksonville is one of the five hospital systems in the state on the list to receive the initial doses. The governor expects 80,000 doses with go the long term-care facilities the first week and 21 days later the second dose will be administered.
"You're going to have 80,000 directed to basically CVS, Walgreens, who are contracted to go into long-term facilities. I have National Guard mobilized, and we're ready to go and administer doses in some of these counties if they're not ready right off the bat because we think it's important."
The governor said the state will not mandate the COVID-19 vaccine.
"I think we want to be collaborative with the facilities," DeSantis said. "I don't know whether they are going to want people to do it as a condition of employment going forward. That would be more of a private sector decision, but I think we just want to work collaboratively. We want to offer it to everybody, but not mandate it on anyone."
As for residents in nursing homes who are not able to give consent, the governor said their guardian will have to give consent.
"There's been a lot of work with the facilities to tee up who needs that third-party consent when Walgreens shows up or Florida shows up," DeSantis said. "I think most of most of them have wanted to do it. I anticipate the vast, vast majority of them will want to do it, but it is not mandated, and it will not be done absent valid consent."
National Guard teams are ready to help with logistical support according the governor.
"I think that there should be a lot of optimism," DeSantis said. "We're a couple weeks away from potentially a whole new horizon, and so I've just tell people, you know, continue to use common sense. Make those good choices, but with the long-term care and the seniors, man, we're getting really, really close, and I know a lot of people been waiting for this."