A federally run COVID-19 vaccination site opened Wednesday at Gateway Town Center on the Northside. The site is operated by FEMA, but the shots are being administered by 139 military personnel, many of them from Naval Hospital Jacksonville.
No appointment is necessary for qualifying individuals, although pre-registration is still encouraged at myvaccine.fl.gov or calling 866-200-3762.
As of Wednesday morning, there was no line and plenty of parking at the Gateway location.
Seniors and others who are vaccine-eligible can access free rides to vaccination sites on JTA bus routes.
The latest eligibility criteria for receiving the vaccine includes anyone over the age of 65, as well as school employees, law enforcement officers and firefighters over the age of 50.
Also newly eligible are people under the age of 65 who have been deemed medically vulnerable by a physician.
That Gateway Town Center location is one of four FEMA-run sites in Florida; others in Orlando, Miami and Tampa also opened Wednesday. Together, the four sites are expected to administer up to 12,000 doses daily and indefinitely.
The Gateway site can administer up to 3,000 doses per day.
As of March 1st, 145,000 people have been vaccinated in Duval County, and more than 3 million have been vaccinated statewide.
In Duval County, 1,175 people have died from COVID-19 to date.
Contact Sydney Boles at sboles@wjct.org, or on Twitter at @sydneyboles.
