The first wave of COVID-19 vaccines have arrived in Florida. Frontline health care workers and long term care facilities are slated to be the first to have access to the vaccinations.
In Cape Coral, the senior living community Atrium at Liberty Park is getting the message out to residents and staff that the vaccines will be available soon.
Executive Director Robert Lord said the facility will not require residents and staff to get vaccinated.
“It’s optional, we’re not mandating it,” Lord said. “We’re just educating and encouraging.”
Lord said the state directed Atrium at Liberty Park to register with a pharmacy to distribute the COVID-19 vaccines.
“We went with CVS and we’re just waiting now, any day now, to get our clinic dates, we’re going to get three clinic dates to offer the vaccine.”
Atrium at Liberty Park residents are looking forward to taking the vaccine, Lord said.
“The population that we serve, the seniors, they’re trailblazers in their own right,” Lord said. “They were some of the first to have their kids get the polio vaccine, some of the women were the first to drive, I mean that generation even put a man on the moon, so they’re familiar with being the first to do things. So they’re onboard, most of them, for getting this vaccine and seeing what it will do to change what we’ve been through.”
Lord said he hopes to have the first clinic day scheduled as soon as next week.
Copyright 2020 WGCU
