The Biden Administration announced Friday it would partner with Florida to open four new community vaccination centers, one of which will be in Jacksonville.
The mass vaccination site will be located at Gateway Town Center and will serve as a hub for additional vaccine sites around the county.
Jacksonville and the three other new major vaccine centers, to be located in Miami, Tampa and Orlando, were chosen specifically to make sure that communities with a high risk of COVID-19 exposure and infection aren’t left behind. Together, the four new sites will offer as many as 12,000 shots per day.
“The goal of establishing these joint federal pilot centers is to continue to expand the rate of vaccinations in an efficient, effective and equitable manner, with an explicit focus on making sure that communities with a high risk of COVID-19 exposure and infection are not left behind,” a spokesperson for President Joe Biden said in a press release.
The Gateway Town Center location is expected to be up and running within two weeks. Scheduling will be available through state and local health department websites. Eligibility will be the same as it is at other Florida vaccination sites.
Separately, the city of Jacksonville announced Friday that the Lane Wiley and Mandarin Senior Centers will be reopening as temporary COVID-19 testing centers.
Testing had stopped there while the two senior centers were converted to vaccination sites earlier this year. Both sites will be open Monday, Feb. 22 to Friday, Feb. 26, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Contact Sydney Boles at sboles@wjct.org, or on Twitter at @sydneyboles.
