BROOKSVILLE, Fla. – As Gov. Ron DeSantis continued his push to vaccinate Florida’s seniors on Wednesday, he mentioned St. Johns County as one of the Florida counties that have had success with vaccinating a large percentage of seniors.
During a news conference at a new vaccine site in Brooksville, DeSantis said 75% of the nearly 54,000 residents age 65 and older in St. Johns County have received the vaccine.
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According to the latest data from the Florida Department of Health, 73.6% of seniors in the county had been vaccinated as of Feb. 23. Seniors make up 20% of the total population of St. Johns County, data shows.
“Those are really, really significant numbers, and so it wouldn’t surprise me if St. Johns ends up hitting 85 or even 90%. I mean, that would be really, really good,” DeSantis said, referring to St. Johns as his “home county.”
Over 2 million of the nearly 4.5 million seniors in the state have received the coronavirus vaccine, about 46%. DeSantis said the percentage is probably closer to 50% because vaccination data tends to lag.
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St. Johns County was one of the first counties in Northeast Florida to offer the vaccine, but it got off to a rough start when the local health department made the decision to offer vaccines on a first-come-first-serve basis in late December, leading to long lines and long wait times.
St. Johns County, one of the more affluent counties in the state, was also one of the first counties in the area and in the state to begin offering vaccines in Publix stores in January.
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Of all the Northeast Florida counties tracked by News4Jax, St. Johns has the highest percentage of vaccinated seniors, followed by Alachua and Nassau.
DeSantis said he expects the percentage of Florida seniors to climb as more vaccines become available.
“We don’t know exactly how many people in the senior community out of the 4.5 million are going to opt for it. I do know clearly we have multiple million who are very interested in it, and that’s great,” he added.
