Florida Department of Health
December 29, 2020
Nassau County Emergency Management COVID-19 Vaccination Update:
As of December 29th DOH-Nassau started delivering vaccine to our emergency medical responders, urgent care providers, and other health care providers with direct patient contact. Once that is complete and more vaccine becomes available, it will be provided to the next priority group of older adults over 65.
There is no exact timeline for providing vaccine to the prioritized groups – plans are dependent on vaccine supply and delivery. (Calling the Health Department will not help.) We are all committed to providing the vaccine to each priority group and then to the general public as quickly as possible. Updates on vaccine timelines for the general public will be provided as they become available.
Please monitor our www.OneNassau.com website and/or sign up for direct-to-your-cellphone updates by texting the word OneNassau to the number 888777. We appreciate your patience as this is a rapidly evolving process.
Yesterday Florida’s Assisted Living Facilities were notified that the federal hold was lifted and these facilities could be enrolled into the vaccine program via CVS and Walgreens. These pharmacies are now authorized to start scheduling clinic visits at the facilities to administer the two shots within a three week span of time. This will deal with about 3100 state licensed facilities and 109,000 residents and staff and third party providers who provide care. Dayspring Village and Dayspring Senior Living have both made the difficult decision to move towards making vaccination a mandatory requirement for continued employment at each facility. The fact that SARS CoV2 poses a “direct threat” to human health is a serious concern and requires employers to take a serious look at whether to mandate vaccinations to protect customers and coworkers from this threat. The EEOC has provided guidance that allows employers to exclude from the workplace those who refuse to comply with the vaccination mandate and cannot comply and otherwise cannot be accommodated with other jobs that do not pose a direct threat to residents. We further plan to exclude third party providers who cannot demonstrate compliance with vaccination in order to protect the health and safety of our residents and staff. Most residents are looking forward to the vaccines and ending the long year of “lock downs” and being able to resume their lives and reconnecting with their families in a safe manner.
Hope you are actually setting aside the second doses. It’s being reported that, in many areas they are using ALL the doses and then telling people who are expecting their second dose 3 weeks later “too bad….we don’t have your second dose. It’s ok.. One dose is all you really need” in direct contradiction of the instructions of Pfizer and Moderna and the study results.
Hopefully you are doing it properly, unlike so many other locations throughout Florida as well as the rest of the country and are only using HALF the doses received. Since both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are TWO doses, given 3 weeks apart, and there won’t be more doses coming soon, those administering the vaccine need to remember this.