FORT PIERCE – St. Lucie County and the City of Fort Pierce are partnering with the Florida Department of Health in St. Lucie County to offer COVID-19 vaccines for those over the age of 65 and health care workers with direct patient contact by appointment only on Monday, Jan. 25 through Wednesday, Jan. 28 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Fenn Center.

Those who have already signed up on the Health Department’s waitlist will have priority registration for this event and will be contacted through EventBrite to sign up. Because of the more than 30,000 individuals already on the waitlist, officials expect all the appointments for this event to be taken. Those on the waitlist unable to secure an appointment will be given priority for future events, which are being planned once more vaccines become available. Please continue to monitor Alert St. Lucie for future events.

Health officials remind everyone that they should also contact their primary care physician about receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, as many private medical facilities have the ability to register as a COVID vaccine provider.

If you receive an appointment for the Fenn Center vaccination Jan. 25-27, please be sure to complete the consent forms prior to arrival. This event will provide the Pfizer vaccine. Please be sure that you use the Pfizer consent form on the Department of Health – St. Lucie website.

For those wishing to be added to the waitlist for future vaccination events, please sign up at stlucie.floridahealth.gov. If you are already on the waitlist, please do not sign up multiple times as that creates a backlog in the registration for future events. There is no charge to register and there is no charge for the vaccine.

The State Surgeon General this week issued a public health advisory regarding the COVID-19 vaccine stating that in order to receive a shot in Florida, you must have a Florida Driver’s License, State ID or two other forms of documentation.

If you received an email confirmation for an appointment in St. Lucie County through the Department of Health and are unable to attend or received the vaccine through another provider, please go into Eventbrite and cancel that appointment. The amount of vaccines at these events is exact to the number of appointments, so when people do not show up for their appointment it’s a missed opportunity to help the community.

Please remember for full vaccination – everyone will need two shots regardless of the type of vaccine you receive. More than 14,500 individuals have already received their first COVID-19 vaccination through the events held at the St. Lucie County Fairgrounds and MIDFLORIDA Event Center. Those who received the first shot will be contacted by the Florida Department of Health in St. Lucie for their second dose.

The second dose should be administered as close to the recommended interval as possible. The vaccine can be given up to four days in advance of the recommended interval if a patient presents early and you are concerned they will not return at the appropriate interval for vaccination. However, there is no maximum interval between the first and second dose for either vaccine. The series does not need to be restarted.

The Fenn Center is located at 2000 Virginia Avenue, Fort Pierce. Please note that traffic along Virginia Avenue will be busy during this event (Jan. 25-27 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.).

Public health officials ask residents wanting the vaccine to be patient, as demand for the shot is high. As more shipments arrive more clinics and distribution sites will be announced. The fastest way to get notified of the clinics is to sign up at www.stlucieco.gov/alert.

Kat Jackson

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