TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida’s program for vaccinating residents and staff at long-term care facilities against the coronavirus is complete, the state’s director of emergency management told lawmakers Thursday, saying that would free up resources for the state’s broader inoculation strategy.
Appearing before a legislative select committee on the response to the pandemic, the director, Jared Moskowitz, echoed Gov. Ron DeSantis’s concern over inadequate deliveries of life-saving vaccines to meet the intense demand.
But unlike the Republican governor he works for, Moskowitz, a former Democratic state lawmaker, asserted that President Joe Biden “has inherited a mess.”
Incoming U.S. health officials who have barely been on the job for a week have been taking stock of the country’s vaccine inventory and have been hard-pressed to tell states just how much is on hand. That has led to uncertainty among states, Moskowitz said, even as his state has expanded vaccination sites.
He said the bottleneck in vaccinations is not due to a lack of a distribution infrastructure. The burden, he said, is on the federal officials to speed up vaccine shipments to states like Florida.
“You’ve all heard of (vaccination) pods closing or hospitals canceling appointments — that’s all linked to supplies. Things have not been perfect. There have been issues. We recognize that. But when they arise, we fix them,” he told lawmakers.
