Florida to lower age eligibility for COVID vaccine to 60

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday that he would drop the eligibility age for the coronavirus vaccine from 65 to 60, allowing 1.4 million more Floridians to get vaccinated starting next week.

DeSantis made the announcement at a news conference in which he also railed against the latest federal stimulus package, which he said rewards states struggling with the virus while penalizing states that have fared better.

As of Sunday, nearly 3.6 million Floridians had gotten at least one vaccine shot, almost three-quarters of them 65 years or older. Other eligible groups include law enforcement officers, firefighters, health care workers, teachers and people 16 and older who are extremely vulnerable to the virus.

“This is the right time to do it,” DeSantis said of lowering the age requirement. He said the state is “starting to see the demand soften” among seniors 65 and up, the first group in the general population that he authorized to be vaccinated. “We think that that’s a good sign because we think that we have reached critical mass on the senior population.”

At the same news conference, the Republican governor called on the federal government to revise the distribution model for the $1.9 trillion stimulus package approved by the U.S. Senate over the weekend. The package includes $350 billion in direct aid to states, with the amounts for each based on unemployment numbers. DeSantis said that model punishes states that moved to quickly reopen their economies after the widespread shutdowns precipitated last year by the outbreak.

DeSantis asserted that California, New York and New Jersey will get billions of dollars more, and he said it was “fundamentally unfair.”

“All these states have something in common: They’re all deep-blue states under Democratic control and they are lockdown states,” he said. “They caused a lot of damage with their policies, and now they’re getting bailed out under this bill.”

The governor argued the aid should be doled out on a per-capita basis. Under that model, Florida, as the country’s third most-populous state, would get an estimated $2 billion more on top of the $17.3 billion it is projected to currently get.

DeSantis upstaged Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, a potential Democratic rival in 2022, by scheduling his news conference at the same time Fried held one at a nearby university.

At her event, Fried, the state’s only statewide Democratic officeholder, once again assailed the governor for what she described as his haphazard approach to vaccinating Florida residents.

“What we’re seeing with this vaccine rollout is chaos, confusion, frustration, lack of clarity because there’s still no plan,” she said.

As she has previously, Fried said vaccination rates for Hispanic and Black Floridians are lagging behind whites. And she called on the governor to make it easier for those with underlying medical conditions to get the vaccine by expanding the methods they can use to show proof.

Jackson Health System, one of the largest hospitals in the state, on Monday said it would not require any documentation for people who are extremely vulnerable to the virus. People 18 and older just need to attest that their doctors recommended they get the vaccine because of a high-risk condition.

The hospital network says it wanted “to provide greater access to more people in our community.”

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Associated Press writer Adriana Gomez Licon in Miami contributed to this report.