PALM BEACH COUNTY – The mayors of South Bay, Belle Glade and Pahokee have reached out to Governor Ron DeSantis for help in securing more COVID-19 vaccinations for their communities.

In a Jan. 26 letter to the governor, South Bay Mayor Joe Kyles, Belle Glade Mayor Steve Wilson and Pahokee Mayor Keith Babb complained the vaccination program now offered through Publix pharmacies in Palm Beach County does not serve the Glades residents. They wrote:

“We, the Mayors of the three small communities that comprise the “Glades” region of south Florida, would like to call your attention to a glaring omission in your vaccine delivery program. While having the COVID vaccine available to people at Publix locations sounds like a great idea, we would invite you to consider these facts:

• For Belle Glade residents, the nearest Publix location is 25 miles away;
• For Pahokee residents, the nearest Publix location is 27 miles away; and
• For South Bay residents, the nearest Publix location is 32 miles away.

“In more affluent communities, none of those distances would be a barrier to getting the vaccine; people would simply get in their vehicles and drive to the Publix nearest their homes. For Glades residents, however, many do not own vehicles of their own but walk everywhere they go. Lack of transportation is a formidable barrier to the people of this region, many times preventing them from obtaining even the most basic necessities. The best they can hope for is to take public transportation to doctor appointments and to purchase food locally. Now, the only way for many of these people to obtain the vaccine will be to use public transportation to travel some 30 miles, possibly with a small child or children in tow, wait in line, then make the return 30-mile trip again via public transportation. This is not even taking into consideration those people who are field and/or mill workers who already work from sun up to sun down (some 7 days per week) then have to try to work out how to add a 2-3 hour (or more) block of time into their day to get to and from a vaccine site 30+ miles away.

“This is simply unacceptable, and, quite frankly, unconscionable. Placing such a barrier on an already vulnerable, highly underserved population cannot be allowed to happen. We strongly urge you to formulate a new plan that provides convenient vaccine access to rural, outlying areas such as ours, or to partner with some other entity such as CVS, Walgreens, etc., which entities are located in our communities and are accessible to our citizens either by foot or through our local transportation system.”

Palm Beach County Commission Vice Mayor Robert Weinroth is also calling on county and state health officials to fix what he calls “glaring inequities” in the county’s COVID-19 vaccination program.

Since Dec. 29, Black and Hispanic residents made up just 7 percent of those vaccinated according to statistics presented to the Palm Beach County Commission on Jan. 26.

“Seventy percent versus 7 percent? I think we can do much better,’’ he said. “We can’t lose sight of the fact that we have a whole underserved population.’’

According to information shared at the meeting, Palm Beach County has vaccinated 130,027 people. That’s 8.7 percent of the county’s population, a higher percentage than Miami-Dade (5.7 percent) and Broward (6.4 percent) counties.

Weinroth challenged county managers and state health officials to “re-double the efforts as far as these underserved communities are concerned because it really is a glaring disparity we cannot accept. Shame on us for allowing this to continue this way.’’

Weinroth praised efforts by churches to offer vaccinations in the underserved areas. But much more needs to be done by local government to wipe out the virus, he said.

“We also have to do something about people who don’t trust us. There is a tremendous lack of trust and we have to make people feel that this vaccine is not going to kill them. That’s what’s apparent in these numbers,’’ he said.
Weinroth also joined commissioners in calling for improvements to the appointment reservation system.

“I think we all agree it’s been a case of ‘whack a mole’ where people have been going in one direction and then rushing in another,’’ he said.

“We need to have one unified vaccination reservation system where people feel equity, feel fairness and feel that if they get on the list on a certain date, their place on the list will be preserved and someone is not going to jump ahead of them because a site opened up with a couple of hundred doses,” he said.