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All Floridians Can Now Register To Get Vaccinated

Photo: Gov. DeSantis
Photo: Gov. DeSantis

All adults in Florida are now eligible to get a COVID-19 vaccine.

Florida joins states including Alaska, West Virginia, Arizona and Texas that allow anyone eligible under the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's emergency use authorization to get vaccinated. That also means anyone 16 and older can get vaccinated with the Pfizer shot.

DeSantis has focused on Floridians over the age of 65 for the early roll-out of the vaccine. In total, about 3.5 million Florida seniors have gotten at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine - that’s 77 percent of all seniors.

In total, three out of four seniors in Florida have gotten at least one dose of a vaccine -- and more than half of seniors are completely vaccinated. President Joe Biden set a May 1 deadline to open vaccine eligibility to all adults.

Still, South Dakota and Vermont lead the U.S. with the highest percentages of vaccinated seniors.

The expanded eligibility comes as Florida is again seeing an increase in cases. According to figures from Johns Hopkins University analyzed by NPR, Florida is averaging 5,403 new cases per day. That's a 20 percent increase from two weeks ago.

According to the CDC, an estimated 13 percent of all cases in Florida are the variant first discovered in the U.K. - the most in the U.S.

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