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Maybe it was the caps.
Or the gloves the two women donned, though temperatures in Orlando, Florida hovered in the ’60s on Wednesday.
In a scene straight out of a sitcom, the women walked to a coronavirus vaccination site “disguised as grannies,” said Dr Raul Pino, the Orange County health administrator, during a press conference on Thursday. Except they were 34 and 44, no older than 65, so despite their outfits, which included glasses, they were not eligible to have their photo taken in Florida.
However, the ruse may have worked before. The women presented valid cards from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing they had already received their first doses of the vaccine, said Dr Pino, who did not name them. “I don’t know how they got away the first time,” he says.
Florida has vaccinated about 42% of its more than 4.4 million people aged 65 and over, according to the state, and healthcare workers and people with certain underlying conditions are also eligible for vaccines. It is not known when the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, will consider that sufficient numbers of these populations have been vaccinated to open up eligibility more widely.
The state is one of many countries where vaccines are in high demand due to a delay in shipments due to weather delays.
Young people, teachers, police and other essential workers are all calling for doses, but Florida has not said which group it will prioritize.
Agencies administering the injections had to be “very careful” about “simulators,” said Dr Pino. “It’s probably higher than we suspect,” he said, adding that at least one man too young for a shot tried to impersonate his father, who had the same name.
“Our job as a health department is to vaccinate as many people as possible, as quickly as possible,” said Dr Pino, adding that the state health ministry was following the governor’s priorities, which are based on amended CDC guidelines.
Department of Health staff on Wednesday asked sheriff’s assistants to issue trespassing warnings to beanie-clad women whose birth dates did not match the ones they used to check in for vaccines, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office said.
They have not been charged with any wrongdoing. But they did not receive the vaccine.
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