- April 19, 2024
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As of Jan. 11, a Flagler County callback list of people who want to be vaccinated for COVID-19 had topped 4,000 names, according to county officials.
To ensure others get the chance to receive the vaccine once supplies are made available, the new vaccines will be divided into three buckets: call-back list, new call-ins and online appointment reservations, Flagler County Emergency Manager Jonathan Lord said. Someone on the call-back list could also call in or make an online appointment when more vaccine supplies are sent to Flagler, rather than waiting for their turn on the call-back list. The state government also expects to open an online reservation system in the coming week.
"We ask all residents to please not be complacent, and reaffirm your commitment to public health measures like social distancing, mask wearing, avoiding large groups and sticking to our internal family household bubbles for socialization."
— BOB SNYDER, health officer, Florida Department of Health-Flagler
Flagler County is not expected get any more vaccines this week — only 254 were allocated among counties statewide, and Flagler was not among them — and the state expects distribution to be very limited for the next five weeks, Lord and Florida Department of Health-Flagler Health Officer Bob Snyder said at a County Commission meeting Jan. 11.
The county quickly distributed the 1,700 vaccines it was allocated from the state last week as thousands of people called to try to make appointments, crashing the county's phone line system.
Meanwhile, Snyder warned, all indicators — the percentage of tests that are positive, hospital admissions numbers, the number of severe cases — are trending in the wrong direction, while the vaccine supply is "grossly inadequate."
"As predicted, the virus spread after Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Years, and now we are seeing the negative effects of the holiday travel," he said. "Daily records for cases have been broken many times during the past four weeks."
This, he warned, is "the most dangerous time for the pandemic" — indicators are more dire than they were in the summer, when individuals and communities were taking greater precautions.
There's reason to hope, he said — when the Health Department did get vaccines for local distribution, it was able to get doses into arms quickly — but it will be many months before there's enough vaccine available for everyone who wants to be vaccinated.
"We ask all residents to please not be complacent, and reaffirm your commitment to public health measures like social distancing, mask wearing, avoiding large groups and sticking to our internal family household bubbles for socialization," Snyder said.
Meanwhile, the county government has spent approximately $90,000 covering COVID-19-related employee paid leave for staff members who are required under county policy to quarantine because of a positive test result or exposure to the virus. The Families First Coronavirus Response Act that requires the county as an employer to grant those paid absences expired on Dec. 1 without renewal, and county commissioners at the Jan 11 meeting were tasked with determining whether to continue granting the 80 hours of paid time or forcing employees to use their personal leave time.
The commission voted 4-0, with Commissioner Greg Hansen absent, to continue providing paid leave, and asked the county administration to provide regular updates on the cost.
"We just heard that this is the worst time," County Commissioner Andy Dance said. "We don't need to be putting our employees in a rough spot of deciding if they want to come back to work."
— Brian McMillan contributed to this story.
