Jacksonville hospitals running low on COVID-19 vaccines

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Supply and demand issues have become frustrating. Many of the local hospitals in the area say they are slowly but surely coming down to the wire for vaccines; the demand for it greatly exceeds the amount coming in.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have a good line on when we will get the next round of the first round version,” Dr. Leon Haley said. “We will probably exhaust our first round in the next couple of days, quite honestly.”

Dr. Haley said they’re currently working with the state to get the next set of doses, but they’re not the only ones looking for more.

“We have the capacity to vaccinate a lot more people,” Vice President of Operations at Baptist Health said. “Our biggest limitation right now is the supply of vaccines.”

Taking a deeper look at the numbers:

• Of the 8,944 administered at UF Health, 3,380 have gotten their second dose. Of the 95% allocated, there’s 5% left for new patients.
• Baptist Health has administered roughly 20,000 with 400 first doses left.
• Flagler Health has administered 1,863 with enough doses to cover the remaining staff for the second dose.

Memorial Hospital & Orange Park Medical Center have administered 6,872.

Dorsey said he’s waiting for another shipment.

“Holding out hope that we will receive a large shipment of first doses again so we can ramp the clinic back up,” Dorsey said.

Hoping that many continue to do their part, Assistant Chief Medical Officer at UF Health Jacksonville, Chirag Patel said it’s hard to keep order when they don’t know how many doses they will get.

“We don’t have any other information, that at least has been shared with us at the hospital, for when we will be getting it,” Patel said.

Dr. Haley said in the radio interview that they are all waiting their turns for the next set so they can get it out to the community

Cox Media Group