this past week president biden said 90 percent of u.s adults will be eligible for the coveted
vaccine by april 19th and will be able to get their shots within five miles of their home
that'll be welcome news to many in florida for three months we've been reporting around
palm beach county the third largest in the state it's home to old money
millionaires but also some of the poorest day laborers and farm workers in america
during those months we watched florida's vaccine rollout deteriorate into a virtual free-for-all
and watched as some wealthy and well-connected residents
cut the line leaving other floridians without a fair shot the story will continue in a moment
this is the town of palm beach
privacy hedges hide beachfront mansions and a healthy share of billionaires
more than 80 percent of the town's seniors have been vaccinated brah mightlis was one of the
first i was the lucky one that had my phone in my hands pushed the link to make the appointment
and had an appointment on january 5th mightlis a retired businessman got his first shot at a
fire station just a block from his home a few days earlier the town had been given a thousand doses
from the state the vaccine was in short supply residents were thrilled but neighboring towns
were upset that palm beach was the only town in all of palm beach county to get the life-saving
shots for their seniors i don't think that they go that for any other reason than being prepared
to be prepared you have to have resources and so i think a lot of people look at palm beach and say
well they got the vaccine because they're a rich community i really think it has nothing to do with
the resources in this particular case absolutely not the palm beach fire chief said they spend
months training staff and setting up locations to administer the vaccine quickly but a bridge
away in west palm beach they say they were just as prepared you were ready in west palm beach for
the vaccine absolutely and i even put my signature on the letter to let the governor and the county
know that we were ready willing and able keith james is the mayor of west palm beach which is
not on the beach at all but the intercoastal waterway the median income in west palm beach
is about 28 thousand dollars a year compared to 70 000 in the town of palm beach james told
us after he and other mayors complained about the town of palm beach getting the one thousand doses
the county's health director took the blame calling it a miscommunication listen the county
health director has fallen on the sword on that and said it was her her bad her organization's bad
they made a mistake but isn't it funny that these mistakes only happen in communities that have that
kind of wealth they didn't make a mistake and send a thousand doses to the poorest communities in our
county mayor james is among a number of community leaders who say the state's vaccination rollout
has favored the wealthy florida's rollout started pretty typically the first doses were given to
health care workers and nursing home residents in early december but then a few weeks later
governor ron desantis breaking from cdc guidelines announced he would not vaccinate teachers and
essential workers next but instead put seniors first making anyone 65 or over eligible for the
vaccine the first in the country to do that desantis said seniors were at highest risk
they will have priority over ordinary workers who are who are under 65 and i think that that's the
appropriate way to do florida's four and a half million seniors started competing against each
other for the vaccine stay in line and stay socially distant in the rush public health
department phone lines failed and computer sites crashed internet issues are my biggest problems
kara masuga a teacher tried to increase the odds of getting her mom an appointment
so i have a school-issued chromebook i have my own personal laptop i have my husband's ipad i have my
ancient ipad and all four of those screens it's very deflating i missed it again today
in some places seniors waited 17 hours for a shot but not everyone was so patient almost immediately
the line jumping started it was incredibly frustrating in west palm beach mayor james says he
was still trying to secure vaccines for his town's firefighters when he learned that at a nursing
home in town some board members and their wealthy pals got vaccinated even though those doses were
only supposed to be given to elderly residents and staff then the private jets started arriving
hollywood moguls new york socialites and tourists from overseas were getting vaccinated in florida
posting on social media and sparking outrage early on there were no residency requirements
to get vaccinated in the state people were saying listen this is uh a resource that i know it's out
there and i'm going to use whatever leverage i have to get that resource there were no rules it
sounds like the hunger games that's a pretty good way of putting it and and those who had the fiscal
resources who are going to use them in whatever way they could to get this vaccine by february 1st
casualties of the chaotic rollout became clear state data revealed of the more than 160 thousand
residents in palm beach county who'd been vaccinated only 2 percent were black and
3 percent hispanic even though minorities make up almost half the county state representative
omari hardy a democrat says it's all about access at the beginning of this pandemic
black people hispanics people of color we bore the full force of this pandemic over-represented
in the hospitalizations over-represented in the deaths and now on the back end of the pandemic
we're bearing the full force of it as well because we don't have the same access to the vaccine some
people have said that the minority community is distrusting of the vaccine and doesn't want the
vaccine what do you think of that narrative that's an excuse for people who don't want
to do the work required to ensure that the distribution of this vaccine is equitable
and nowhere was that more challenging than here this is the glades it's 44 miles west
of the town of palm beach also in palm beach county 31 thousand people call the glades home
rivers of sugar cane line the roads and the air is thick with the smell of molasses about 90 percent
of residents are black and latino many live below the poverty line by march 11 weeks into the
rollout more than half the seniors in the glades had still not been vaccinated have they taken the
vaccine yet are they interested in the vaccine for months tammy jackson moore a community organizer
has been going door to door trying to fix that out here we were with her when we met 91 year
old annie pearl cornelius on her porch do you drive no ma'am do you have a computer
no ma'am annie pearl told us she wanted to get the vaccine for months but couldn't make
an appointment a lot of people still have flip phones so there were a lot of challenges in our
community as it relates to people trying to make appointments for vaccinations but the biggest
challenge for residents of the glades wasn't just making appointments it was getting to them that's
because back in january the governor made another game-changing move he announced he was partnering
with publix grocery stores across the state to distribute the vaccine in their pharmacies but
as part of the program in palm beach county most seniors could no longer get vaccine appointments
through their public health departments they had to go to publix instead i was shocked
because i know that we don't have a publix in our community and then i got angry because i
personally knew three people that had passed from covet and i knew that this was not going to be
good for this community belle glade is one of the poorest communities not just in palm beach county
but in the state of florida so you have lots of folks who don't have cars how far would someone
from belle glade have to go to get to a publix the nearest publix to belle glade is about 25 miles
that's pretty significant if you don't drive you have to catch two buses to get to the nearest
publix from the glades it's 34 stops more than two hours round trip a daunting task in
the middle of a pandemic especially if you're elderly so why did the governor choose publix
campaign finance reports obtained by 60 minutes show that weeks before the governor's announcement
publix donated a hundred thousand dollars to his political action committee friends of ron
desantis julie jenkins-fancely heiress to the public's fortune has given 55 thousand dollars
to the governor's pack in the past and in november vancelli's brother-in-law hoyt r barnett a retired
publix executive donated twenty five thousand dollars publix did not respond to our request
for comment about the donations governor desantis is up for re-election next year i imagine governor
desantis's office would say look we privatize the rollout because it's more efficient and
it works better it hasn't worked better for people of color before i could call the public health
director she would answer my calls but now if i want to get my constituents information about how
to get this vaccine i have to call a lobbyist from publix that makes no sense they're not
accountable to the public distributing vaccines is lucrative under federal guidelines publix like
any other private company can charge medicare 40 dollars a shot to administer the vaccine
we wanted to ask governor desantis about the deal but he declined our request for an interview
we caught up with them south of orlando publix as you know donated a hundred thousand dollars
to your campaign and then you rewarded them with the exclusive rights to distribute the vaccination
in palm beach what you're saying is right how does that not pay to play that's a fake narrative i met
with the county mayor i met with the administrator i met with all the folks at palm beach county and
i said here's some of the options we can do more drive-through sites we can give more to hospitals
we can do the publics and they said we think that would be the easiest thing for our residents
but melissa mckinlay the county commissioner in the glades told us the governor never met with
her about the public's deal the criticism is that it's pay to play governor it's wrong it's a fake
narrative i just disabused you of the narrative and you don't care about the facts because
obviously i laid it out for you in a way that is irrefutable and so it's clearly not isn't there
the nearest publix to the glades is 30 miles away that's actually a fact a federal complaint raises
other questions about the governor's vaccine distribution decisions and alleges governor
desantis was discriminating when he hand-picked communities for pop-up sites across the state
one of those communities was lakewood ranch in manatee county just south of tampa in february the
governor announced he was giving three thousand doses to the community we saw a need we want
to get the numbers up for seniors but what the governor didn't mention was that lakewood ranch
developer pat neal has donated 135 thousand dollars to the friends of ron desantis pack
or that only residents from two zip codes would be allowed to get the shots and those two zip
codes have some of the highest income levels and lowest covett infection rates in the county
when the governor was questioned about it he threatened to take all the vaccine back look
i mean if manatee county doesn't like us doing this then we are totally fine with putting this
in counties that want it annie pro cornelius got her first shot last month at a weekly vaccination
site the state set up in the glades the local cvs and walgreens have been given vaccine too
there is no shortage of takers today was my day of luck state democratic leaders are calling
for the justice department to investigate whether governor desantis was rewarding high dollar donors
with special access to the vaccine this is a once in a century pandemic someone
shouldn't have a better chance to survive because they have money
or because they can write a check to someone or because they have access to powerful people
a retired nfl star helps his hometown get vaccinated next thing you know we had a site at 60
minutesovertime.com