FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (WSVN) - As Florida prepares to vaccinate more seniors in the new year, a COVID-19 testing location in Fort Lauderdale is set to transition into a vaccination site for people 65 and older.
Starting Tuesday, COVID vaccinations will be available at Holiday Park, located at 1150 G. Harold Martin Drive.
“They’ll start with about 500 a day, and that’s intended so that in three weeks, those 500 can come back and get a second dose,” said Fort Lauderdale City Manager Chris Lagerbloom. “Eventually, we’ll work our way to 1,000 a day.”
Appointments must be made online.
“There’s a registration system that’s being worked on, on the web right now. It’s not live today because it really was inundated with a lot of people early on,” said Lagerbloom.
Holiday Park, a center for testing since the beginning of the pandemic, will be a location for vaccinations only, henceforth. COVID-19 testing in Fort Lauderdale, meanwhile, will continue at Mills Pond Park, located at 2201 NW 9th Ave.
Lagerbloom hopes the switch will be a major step forward to driving the case numbers down in Broward County.
“I remember back to March 15 of last year, when we went to the beach and said, ‘It’s closed. Spring break is done. Go home,'” he said. “Gosh, we’re at January 1st of 2021, and thankfully, we’re talking vaccine, and hopefully, this is that light at the end of the tunnel, and we can move on.”
Health experts said the vaccinations must continue.
“We really want to get those priority people vaccinated, so that we can then get to what we call the open season for the general population,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, “and we hope, as we get into January, February, March and into April, we’ll finally be there, so that the spring and the summer, we can really do a very good job of getting as many people as possible vaccinated.”
“It’s great that we’re talking about it. Hopefully, it’s not too far into the future,” said Lagerbloom.
People 65 and older who would like to register to receive the vaccine at Holiday Park will be able to do so by going to this website, which is expected to go live in the next few days.
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