No Discussion Of Palm Beach County Health Department’s Call Center Failure on Tuesday. Thousands Told To Wait For Shot While Kings Point Takes Part In Photo Op.
DELRAY BEACH, FL (BocaNewsNow.com) — While the Palm Beach County Health Department continues to manage its call center crisis, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Wednesday morning announced that the department will administer 300 COVID-19 shots in Kings Point — a senior citizen community off Atlantic in Delray Beach. Those shots are now underway.
It was unclear how the 300 residents to take part were selected.
The announcement comes after thousands of senior citizens in Palm Beach County called a Florida Department of Health for Palm Beach County call center on Tuesday to make appointment for the vaccine. But local health department officials apparently had no idea — inexplicably — that thousands would call. The center was set up for only 150 calls at a time and crashed. Callers who finally got through late in the day tell BocaNewsNow.com that they were told to call back next week or send an email to an email box that is seemingly inoperable.
Palm Beach County Mayor David Kerner joined Gov. DeSantis at the photo op. He, too, did not discuss the County Health Department’s failure.
DeSantis said other senior citizens should call their local health departments or hospitals to arrange COVID-19 vaccines. There was no mention of the failure in Palm Beach County when seniors tried to do just that, or mention of Baptist Health Systems saying it is not ready to announce vaccination schedule. Baptist runs some of the largest hospitals in Palm Beach County, including Boca Raton Regional Hospital, Bethesda East and Bethesda West.
Palm Beach County reported a record positivity rate on Tuesday — 19.50 percent.
