HomePublic News Florida’s Vaccine Distribution Plan – Are You Eligible? Resources to Assist You and Your Patients
Florida’s Vaccine Distribution Plan – Are You Eligible? Resources to Assist You and Your Patients
By FCA Asst. Gen. Counsel Kim Driggers and FCA Help Desk Coordinator Mollie Frawley, RN
Wednesday, 06 January 2021
The chances of predicting whether or not your county health department or eligible county hospital will vaccinate you, a chiropractic physician or your staff or your patients, are about as good as predicting the winner of the 2020 Presidential election.
What we do know:
The Governor issued Executive
Order 20-315 on December 23, 2020, establishing front-line health care
workers, staff and residents of long-term care facilities and individuals
65 and older as those with first priority. A news
release giving further explanation was published on December 29, 2020.
The CDC
recommends the vaccine for “healthcare personnel.”The CDC’s broad definition of “healthcare
personnel” does not specifically name chiropractors.[1]
The
CDC’s examples of healthcare personnel include:
Emergency medical service
personnel
Nurses and nursing assistants
Physicians
Technicians
Therapists
Dentists
Dental hygienists and
assistants
Phlebotomists
Pharmacists
Students and trainees
Contractual staff
Dietary and food services
staff
Environmental services staff
Administrative staff
Hospitals are administering COVID-19 vaccine to health care workers with direct patient
contact, including health care workers in their communities, as well as persons
65 years of age and older and hospital providers may vaccinate persons who they
deem to be extremely vulnerable to COVID-19. A list of hospitals administering COVID-19 vaccine as
of 12/29/2020 can be found here.
County Health Departments are
administering COVID-19 vaccine to
persons 65 years of age and older.County Health Departments may
require you to register for an appointment. Please check your County
Health Department or county government’s website for more information.
The distribution of the COVID-19 vaccinations differs from
county-to-county and from hospital-to-hospital and, therefore, should you want
the vaccination, you should review the specific information on their websites
through the resources cited in this Bulletin.
Many of the websites have applications to complete for the vaccine
and/or for an appointment.
For those desiring the vaccine, you or your patients are
encouraged to identify all of their personal factors affecting their
vulnerability and to reach out online to their county health department and/or
local hospitals to sign up for the vaccine. Those with significant
comorbidities may wish to enlist their personal physician treating those
conditions for assistance in being moved up in the priority. It is
reasonable to expect hospitals to give priority to recommendations from a
physician who has privileges with them.
[1]The CDC
defines “healthcare personnel” very broadly to include, all paid and unpaid persons serving in healthcare
settings who have the
potential for direct or indirect exposure to patients or infectious materials,
including body substances (e.g., blood, tissue, and specific body fluids);
contaminated medical supplies, devices, and equipment; contaminated
environmental surfaces; or contaminated air. HCP include, but are not
limited to, emergency medical service personnel, nurses, nursing assistants,
home healthcare personnel, physicians, technicians, therapists, phlebotomists,
pharmacists, students and trainees, contractual staff not employed by the
healthcare facility, and persons not directly involved in patient care, but who
could be exposed to infectious agents that can be transmitted in the healthcare
setting (e.g., clerical, dietary, environmental services, laundry, security,
engineering and facilities management, administrative, billing, and volunteer
personnel). See CDC
Explanation here.
