Dr. Raul Pino, the health administrator in Orlando, Fla., said that two young women "dressed up as grannies" tried to get their second coronavirus vaccine doses on Wednesday. They wore bonnets, gloves and glasses, he said: "I don't know how they escaped the first time."
The women were probably in their 20s, Pino said. They had valid CDC vaccination cards, but "there were some issues with their ID's" and driver's licenses.
There have been a "few" cases of people faking vaccine eligibility, Pino said, including one man who shared a name with his father: "It's probably higher than we suspect."
"Our job as a health department is to vaccinate as many people as possible as fast as possible," Pino said, adding that the department follow's the governor's guidance, which is based on modified CDC guidelines.
(Needless to say: If you are one of these ladies and would like to share your story, my email is in the bio!)
👋! Latina reporter here. I have a thread about how we gave our readers a more nuanced understanding of the vote in Florida. For inquiring minds. 1/x
“Despite a late push to court Latino voters over the last several weeks, Joe Biden is ending his presidential bid on shaky and perhaps perilous ground with this diverse, essential segment of the electorate...” 2/x
“Biden, in turn, faces an increasingly urgent need to build up his margins with Latinos, a diverse demographic in Florida that he has struggled to broadly galvanize so far.” 3/x nytimes.com/2020/10/29/us/…
Early voting began today in Florida. There are usually lines on the first day because people are excited; elections supervisors expect to see that (despite the rain in South Florida). A thread:
Stay-at-home orders have nearly halted travel for most Americans, but people in Florida, the Southeast and other places that waited to enact such orders have continued to travel widely, potentially exposing more people as the outbreak accelerates. nytimes.com/interactive/20…
A half-dozen of the most populous counties where residents were traveling widely last week are in Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis resisted calling for a statewide lockdown until Wednesday. nytimes.com/interactive/20…
Sheriff Chad Chronister of Hillsborough County, Fla., says he has obtained an arrest warrant for Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne of The River at Tampa Bay Church for holding large services and "intentionally and repeatedly" disregarding orders to avoid large gatherings.
"His reckless disregard for human life put hundreds of people in his congregation at risk and thousands of residents who may interact with them this week in danger," Chronister says.
Chronister says the authorities advised the church's lawyers that they would be endangering people by violating social distancing and stay at home orders. The sheriff sent members of his command staff to the church to convey the same message but the pastor refused to meet them.
Florida @GovRonDeSantis bans all visitation to all nursing homes and similar facilities for seniors in Broward County for the next 30 days. The state has counted 11 positive coronavirus cases in Broward so far.
Florida has received 1,000 of 2,500 commercial coronavirus testing kits it has ordered, DeSantis says.
They will be distributed to hospitals based on highest need starting in Broward County, DeSantis says.