The medical center is still vaccinating its own employees, but Mount Sinai officials say they could start vaccinating the general public as soon as this weekend.
Elder members of the general public could soon receive their COVID-19 vaccines in Miami Beach thanks to the Mount Sinai Medical Center. While the hospital is still vaccinating its own employees, CEO Steve Sonenreich stated the center had enough stock of both the Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna vaccines to start inoculating the city’s eldest residents.
According to Sonenreich, the hospital has already started planning out the logistics with Miami Beach officials and has already started reaching out to patients.
“We are aggressively reaching out to our patient base and to people who reside in our community, particularly those who are in senior housing facilities, so that we can reach as many people as possible,” Sonenreich told the Miami Herald. “Everyone knows that those are the age groups that faced the most difficult challenges with this pandemic.”
The hospital will start with patients over 75 and continue with those over 65 once it has completed the round of patients in the older age bracket. Sonenreich also added the vaccines would not be limited to Mount Sinai patients.
Doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines arrived in South Florida earlier last week and Mount Sinai began vaccinating its employees on Wednesday, December 17. Now, general public vaccinations are expected to start as soon as this weekend; the hospital has already started scheduling out the appointments electronically. “We want to expend our supply as quickly as possible because I don’t anticipate we’re going to get resupplied until the state sees that we need it,” Sonenreich said.
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