As frustration grows over the slow pace of vaccinations at assisted-living facilities, Florida has hired a Miami company with orders to get the job done by the end of the month.
Miami’s CDR Maguire, a private firm that has operated COVID test sites, has been tapped by the state to vaccinate as many residents as possible in about half of Florida’s assisted living facilities — 1,900 — within the next 20 days. The company says it has hired 1,000 workers for the job, which it began on Monday.
The move comes after outrage by Florida’s Assisted Living Association and the families of the senior residents at assisted living facilities who were told they were supposed to be a priority and included in the first phase of Florida’s COVID-19 vaccination plan.
But while nursing homes became a priority in mid-December, assisted living facilities did not. Unlike nursing homes, which provide 24-hour medical care for residents, assisted living facilities support disabled and elderly residents who don’t require as much care. Florida authorized the distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine to assisted living facilities in the state on Dec. 29.
Veronica Catoe, CEO of the Florida Assisted Living Association, said CDR Maguire has begun to set up dates in January for vaccination clinics with facilities in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Hillsborough and Pinellas.
CVS and Walgreens are supposed to vaccinate residents of long-term care facilities under a program set up by the federal government. But the pharmacies had been giving some assisted living facilities dates in February and March to distribute the first doses — if they contacted the sites at all. Now CDR Maguire says it will provide the Pfizer vaccine to seniors in facilities that are not scheduled with CVS or Walgreen on or before Jan. 23.
“A vast number of assisted living facilities in Florida had not received a call for a date,” Catoe said. “The state realized the existing plan was not going to work and it needed to do something in addition. CDR Maguire is focused on those who had not received a date first, then they will be going to those that heard from CVS or Walgreens but have dates after January.”
Florida has 3,130 assisted living facilities with 111,675 licensed beds. As of Friday, nearly half of Florida nursing home residents had received their initial dose of the vaccine. However, fewer than 10% of assisted living facilities had received vaccines, according to results of a survey by the Florida Assisted Living Association.
CVS has just started vaccinating at ALFs. It has administered vaccinations at 12, according to information provided by the company. But the company’s schedule calls for a major increase, with vaccination clinics planned at 1,091 facilities over the next week.
“Our effort to administer a COVID-19 vaccine to Florida’s long-term care community has been going according to plan,” CVS spokeswoman Tara Burke said. “Today, we began administering the vaccine in assisted-living facilities. The rollout is incremental over a period of days, as our long-term care facility partners are determining the timing of when the vaccine will be administered to eligible residents and staff.”
Walgreens did not respond to requests for comment.
“So far, to be quite honest, I think the federal contract on the long-term-care facilities has been a mediocre experience,” said Jared Moskowitz, director of Florida’s Division of Emergency Management and the state’s top official overseeing the vaccine distribution, told the Orlando Sentinel.
“If the federal contract is not getting the job done, the state will step in and finish skilled-nursing and long-term care facilities,” he added.
Walgreens did provide Florida seniors the COVID-19 vaccine at some facilities last week. Vaccinations went smoothly Friday at Belmont Village, an ALF that opened last year in Fort Lauderdale. Walgreens’ staffers arrived, set up tables and had advance information on everyone scheduled for a vaccination, said Rene Buck, the ALF’s executive director. A total of 55 residents and staff got shots, he said.
About two-thirds of the staff of 65 did not want shots for various reasons, including skepticism of vaccines, he said.
They plan to work on persuading staff members to get the shots when Walgreens returns to administer second doses.
Ella Furman said her ALF, Golden Age Manor in Plantation, received a call from Walgreens on Monday moving up the vaccine date by two weeks for seniors. The pharmacy will arrive Jan. 15 instead of Jan. 29 and give 29 residents the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, along with staff and medical providers who visit the facility.
“All my residents are so happy,” Furman said. “They want to get out and walk around and do what they are supposed to do. They will still wear masks but they want to be free.”
Michael Mayo, a former Sun Sentinel staff writer, has been asking when his mother’s assisted living facility in Hollywood will get the vaccine. Mayo said the ALF told him they still hadn’t been given a date by CVS.
“It’s been very frustrating knowing that all these doses of vaccine have been shipped to the state and a small percentage has been put into people’s arms,” he said. “The group that the governor said was the highest priority, the group most at risk, are the ones that seem to not be getting the vaccine first.”
Mayo said he learned about Florida hospital donors and wealthy foreigners who are getting vaccinated in the state — before his mother and others in the Hollywood ALF. “She is still sitting there and doesn’t have a date, and COVID is in their building,” he said. “This is going to cost people lives.”
Long-term care facility residents had thought they had the highest priority after a federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention committee recommended on Dec. 20 that they and health care workers become the first to receive the vaccine.
Gov. Ron DeSantis also vowed to make long-term care residents a top priority, holding a news conference in mid-December at a nursing home outside Fort Lauderdale where 90 residents became among the nation’s first to be vaccinated. Florida also brought in a “strike team” of additional health professionals in December to help with vaccinations in nursing homes.
But on Dec. 23, before vaccination was completed at long-term care facilities, DeSantis issued an executive order that made anyone 65 and older eligible in the first round of vaccines.
The change created an enormous pool of older residents now battling for a place in line. Although Florida has enough vaccine for 568,000 people, the state is home to 4.5 million older adults, including 340,000 in Broward County, 400,000 in Palm Beach County, and 465,000 in Miami-Dade County.
After getting lots of push-back about the widened age group, the high demand and insufficient quantity of shots, DeSantis on Jan. 4 vowed to send extra personnel to long-term care facilities to help with the effort.
Across Florida, more than 8,470 long-term care residents and staff have died of the coronavirus, about 38% of the state’s total deaths.
Sun Sentinel health reporter Cindy Goodman can be reached at cgoodman@sensentinel.com or 954-304-5908. David Fleshler can be reached at dfleshler@sunsentinel.com
