ANNOUNCER: Now from CBS4 News,
this is "Facing South
Florida" with Jim DeFede.
Good morning.
I'm Jim Defede, and welcome
to "Facing South Florida."
Well, 2021 is off to
a heck of a start.
In a few minutes we will
get to the insurrection
at the Capitol with
Congressman Ted Deutch.
But we begin with the failure
to roll out the COVID vaccine.
It is now obvious the
federal government
was not prepared to
distribute the vaccine.
In Florida, scheduling
websites have crashed.
We've seen seniors waiting
overnight in lines,
only to be turned away.
And a general state
of chaos has ensued.
On Friday, I spoke
to Jared Moskowitz,
the Florida Director of
Emergency Management,
who is overseeing the
state's distributions.
So are you satisfied with the
rollout of the vaccine so far?
No, Jim I'm as frustrated
as everybody else,
but I wanna be clear.
This is a supply problem.
It's not a distribution problem.
The reason why there are
not enough sites open,
which is why these sites
are getting overwhelmed
with people,
phone numbers, online systems,
is because we can't
open up more sites,
because we don't
have enough vaccine.
But, wait a second.
You got, but when we
were talking earlier,
you said you got about
1.2, 1.3 million doses,
and you've only given out
about a third of those.
So it's not a supply
problem in that sense.
You've got more vaccine
ready to go into arms,
then you're actually
putting into arms.
Yeah that's, I
understand how that,
how you're phrasing it.
But the truth of the matter is,
that we have about 200,000
vaccines that come off the top,
for the long-term care program,
in order to turn on the
long-term care program
with the federal government.
So 200,000 right off the top.
Then we have 400 hospitals,
obviously they have vaccines.
So when we say there's
hundreds of thousands of doses
separate it out by 400,
it turns out that there's
only a thousand here,
2000 there, 3000 there, and
they're getting those out.
It's why the governor
instructed me
to go out and hire a thousand
nurses to increase throughput.
And we've seen that happen.
We did 60,000 shots yesterday,
was our number one day.
We're increasing, we're
third in the nation
in shots in arms.
So at the end of the
day, it's getting better.
But we do have a supply problem.
In the 65 and older community,
where we're opening up pods,
whether it's a county pod, a
hospital pod, or state pod,
thousands of people are
trying to descend on sites,
where we only have enough
vaccine to feed that site
for 500 a day or
a thousand a day.
I got half a million
doses in week two.
In week three, I got 50% less.
And the federal government
is only giving us a
seven day look ahead.
So people are like, where's
the long range planning?
How can you plan when
you're only being told
what you're getting
seven days ahead?
That is a failure of the
Operation Warp Speed system.
Well, let's talk about
the state system.
Because it seems to me in
talking to hospital executives,
that one of the
critical mistakes
that the state may have made
was relying on hospitals,
as the form of distribution,
as the point of distribution.
Why wasn't the National
Guard called out?
Why aren't we seeing mass
sites, mass vaccination sites,
set up by the military, you
know at the Hard Rock Stadium
where you could do large
throughput of people?
'Cause doing this where
you're vaccinating,
you know, 700 people
at Mount Sinai,
a thousand people you know a day
at Jackson Memorial Hospital.
You know so many
at Broward Health.
You know from just the
math that I was working out
with one of the
hospital executives,
it's gonna be three,
400 days, at that rate.
You need more infrastructure.
Why wasn't that foreseen?
You knew this was coming.
Why not see it?
I hear what you're saying.
Okay, we built the
infrastructure.
We have the infrastructure.
We just don't have
enough vaccine.
And so hospitals and counties
don't wanna open up pods
and then close them,
because they're saying
you're only giving me enough
vaccine for five or six days.
When am I getting the rest?
Well, the answer
is, I don't know,
because I only get
seven days ahead.
It's not that relying on
hospitals was a mistake.
First of all, the CDC under 1a,
right, everyone wants
us to follow the CDC.
The CDC said put all of
this in the hospitals,
because we have to do
frontline healthcare workers.
In fact, in the first
week, we were only allowed
to send it to five hospitals
in the entire state,
if you remember.
Every state in the nation
sent it to hospitals.
Governor Cuomo came out,
and is fining hospitals
for not getting the vaccine out.
So this is not a Florida plan.
This was a national plan to
put it into hospitals, okay.
Also, people with
severe comorbidities,
who need this vaccine, that
can only be given in a hospital
because they have to be
monitored in a medical setting.
So look, I opened up
80, 90 testing sites.
We know how to build
infrastructure.
We know how to do this.
We've done it in the
minority community,
in disadvantaged communities.
But at the end of the day, the
military is not the solution.
We don't have a
military in this state.
The National Guard
doesn't do shots.
They can stick a
swab up your nose,
but they're not
medical professionals.
They can't give you a shot.
So if another politician
asks for the National Guard,
hear me now.
The National Guard
cannot vaccinate.
They can do logistics.
But you could supplement
the National Guard with those
nurses that you're hiring.
Yeah, Jim, we've done that.
You can have
the National Guard
be organizationally.
Hold on, we've done that.
You're sending those,
but where are you
sending those nurses?
Are you sending them
to the hospitals?
Or are you sending
them to large sites,
that you're gonna now create?
900 nurses are already out.
They're already out at
county health departments.
They're already at hospitals.
They're already
at the state site.
They are gone.
They're already out.
I did it in three days.
The National Guard,
already out, already there.
They're doing logistics.
Every county that has
requested the National Guard,
you know how that comes
into my WebEOC system.
Just like it did since March.
Just like it did
in every hurricane.
They request it, I grant it.
So the National Guard is out
there and doing logistics.
They're doing traffic flow,
they're running sites.
But they can't
increase throughput.
Only the medical
professionals, nurses,
can increase throughput,
which is why I've
put them out there.
It's funny.
I mean, I just did a quick look
before I got on
the call with you.
In 2019, UNICEF
gave out you know,
I think it was 130 million shots
to children in poor countries.
I mean, do we need to
bring UNICEF in too,
or outside groups like the
World Health Organization
to vaccinate?
If you-
I mean, it doesn't seem like,
It doesn't seem like we're
reinventing the wheel here.
You know, if I can go into
a small third-world country,
and vaccinate the children
there for small pox and measles,
why can't we in the richest
country in the world,
do it for our citizens?
That's a great question.
You're gonna have to ask
the federal government
that question.
I thought they spent
billions of dollars
buying all this vaccine,
and it was gonna be on
the shelf ready to deploy.
That clearly did
not happen, right.
I'm getting 250,000 vaccines
a week, for the whole state!
Okay, I got four
million seniors.
and I'm getting 250,000
vaccines a week.
It is a supply issue.
It is not a distribution issue.
At the rate that it's going,
how long will it take
to vaccinate the people
in the state of Florida?
I mean, look, Dr. Fauci
has told everyone,
this is gonna take a year.
He's been telling
because he has obviously
the information.
That's unacceptable
for me, by the way,
as cases are going up,
as people are gonna
wind up in hospitals,
as families are gonna
lose loved ones,
as families are not
gonna be able to visit
folks in the hospitals, because
of all the COVID procedures.
We know the new
variant is everywhere.
I'm really worried
and frustrated
about what's going
on with the vaccine.
But let's be clear.
I don't produce the vaccine.
I distribute the vaccine.
If they give us what we
need, we will give it out.
We're doing 200,000
tests a day here.
We know how to build
infrastructure.
We know how to
serve the customer.
But the problem is, this is
just like when testing began.
When there weren't
enough COVID tests,
and there weren't enough swabs,
this is what was happening.
People couldn't get tested.
Lines were eight hours
long, systems were failing.
So we've gone through this.
And as long as they increase
supply and send it down,
I could turn on every
pharmacy in the state,
CVS, Walgreens, Publix, Walmart.
I'm ready to turn all those on.
I could only turn on
20 in the whole state,
'cause we don't
have enough vaccine.
Former Governor, Rick Scott,
Senator Rick Scott has
called for an investigation
into the state's distribution,
in part because
of various reports
that some of the vaccine is
being given to hospital donors
or family members who own
nursing home facilities.
That in other words,
there's an insider system
to sort of jump the
line, and get vaccinated.
What's your response
to the Senator
calling for an investigation?
Well, I think the Senator
calling for an investigation
is the right thing to do.
The governor has also launched
an investigation, as well.
The only misnomer is, what
happened to that nursing home
was done under the
federal contract,
with the federal contractor,
with zero state involvement.
So the one that we've
been reading about
in the national news,
that is a federal contract
with a federal contractor.
So part of the-
for family members were,
went to that, family members
who own that nursing home,
jumped the line and were
getting vaccinated themselves.
Correct, so that's a long-term
care facility being done,
under the Federal
Long-Term Care Program
with a federal contractor,
with a contract that
I'm not even a party to.
So as part of the investigation,
hopefully the federal government
will look into their
own federal contract.
That was up in Palm beach.
Let me ask you about
something more statewide.
One of the things that
you do have control over
is the state prison system.
You know, I understand
some people may be angered
by the thought that we have
to take care of prisoners,
and that prisoners
need to be vaccinated.
But there are about
almost 10,000 prisoners
in the state of Florida,