More than 200,000 COVID-19 vaccines for Florida delayed due to winter weather

LAKE MARY, Fla. - As bad winter weather continues to devastate much of the United States, COVID-19 vaccine shipments are being delayed.

Governor Ron DeSantis said Florida is waiting on thousands of them.

"It’s not a great day in Florida weather-wise," DeSantis said. "It’s a heck of a lot worse in other parts of the country and so vaccine shipments are being delayed."

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However, he said Florida has received the vast majority of the Pfizer vaccine doses, with about 136,000 already here and another 9,000 on the way. The same cannot be said for the 208,000 Moderna vaccines earmarked for Florida.

"That’s yet to come," the Governor said. "Hopefully by Thursday or Friday. Normally we would have all of the Moderna by Tuesday or Wednesday of each week."

Governor DeSantis is asking for patience during this time as some appointments this week may also be postponed.

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He said more than 1.8 million seniors have been vaccinated in Florida and as more doses are expected to be delivered each week, he said vaccination efforts could soon expand.

"Hopefully, over the next couple of weeks is there will be a little softening in the demand among seniors," he said. "Now there’s still very strong demand because we have 4.5 million seniors and you got many that want it. But I think that as you do more and more chunks and if we are getting 400,000 a week that’s gonna make a big dent in that. Once we see that that’s when we will expand to either other age groups and/or some of the key areas like law enforcement."

Weather permitting, the state is expecting a 41,000 increase in doses next week.

Tune in to FOX 35 Orlando for the latest Central Florida news.