Five hundred people got their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine in the drive-thru vaccination pod at the Okeechobee County Agri-Civic Center on Feb. 4. Meanwhile the  Okeechobee County Health Department was also busy this week administering second doses of the vaccine to those who received their first dose four weeks ago.

On social media on Friday, Feb. 5, Tiffany Collins,  Okeechobee County Health Department administrator, explained the drive-thru vaccination pod was a team effort with Okeechobee County Fire/EMS, Okeechobee County Sheriff’s Office, Emergency Management and Health Department personnel as well as other county staffers and “ton of volunteers, Okeechobee CERT and Matt Bowen and his team from Christ Fellowship, some of whom where there as early as 3 a.m. – volunteering their free time, everyone working extremely hard all morning.

“We even brought in additional vaccinators from the state,” she explained in a Facebook post. “We couldn’t have done this without every single person’s assistance. Even county and health department staff who weren’t on-site helped prep the days prior.

“The system isn’t perfect,” she continued. “We build productive efficiencies each time as we will after this one, we have federal and state guidelines we have to follow and a lot of factors at play to consider. That’s why county emergency management and health department leadership are on daily calls and meetings to keep abreast of the constant changes in distribution rollout, in technology onboarding (i.e online appointment system.) Each decision is made with careful consideration and in the best interest of our local community within our guidelines and with the resources we have and the weekly allocation we are given- with very little notice by the federal government each week.

“Some, unfortunately, each week have to be, #501.”

She explained the good news is that last week, Okeechobee County’s allocation was only 300 doses a week and this week it was 500 doses.

“We are lucky to live in a community who has a county board who advocates for rural resources for us as much as they do and continue to support their local health department’s efforts as displayed by the enormous manpower it took to put on yesterday’s (Feb. 4) drive-thru POD for our community," she stated.