Marlins Park vaccinations to start next week. City fighting for residency restriction

Miami-Dade County residents could start receiving vaccinations for COVID-19 at Marlins Park as soon as Wednesday — but Miami Mayor Francis Suarez wants to reserve doses only for those who live inside city limits under a policy he’s calling “Miami First.”

Even though federal regulations and guidance from emergency managers agree that there cannot be residency requirements for vaccines, Suarez wants to keep vaccines for people who live inside city limits. He presented a resolution at Thursday’s Miami commission meeting requesting that the city manager and attorney “take all legal steps necessary to prevent non-residents of the city of Miami from receiving vaccines prior to the elderly and vulnerable population of our community and the general population of our city.”

Regardless of residency, under orders from Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida’s policy limits vaccinations to people 65 and over, rescue and healthcare workers, and people hospitals determine have conditions severe enough to receive early vaccinations.

The state’s top emergency management official came out firmly against residency restrictions Thursday during a House Pandemic and Public Emergencies Committee meeting in Tallahassee.

“You can’t do that,” said state Emergency Management Director Jared Moskowitz. “We got a dozen-plus fiscally constrained counties. People are going to have to cross county lines. We have transient populations here in the state. We can’t do that sort of stuff. It will have major implications down the road.”

With a fight over a residency mandate brewing, a slew of government agencies are planning to move coronavirus testing at Marlins Park to one of the ballpark’s parking garages while vaccinations are set up on the surface lot west of the stadium. According to a plan proposed by Miami’s fire department, officials say they could vaccinate up to 2,240 people each day, but the supply is not expected to meet the demand.

Miami-Dade County officials confirmed on Thursday that Marlins Park is scheduled to receive up to 7,000 doses next week while other county-run sites may close due to a slowdown in federal vaccine shipments.

The lack of supplies from the federal government is frustrating administrators from Tallahassee to Miami-Dade County government. Miami-Dade has reserved a portion of its vaccine supplies for county employees 65 and over, who have their own reservations portal for appointments and go to a vaccination site not open to the public.

Most of Miami-Dade’s vaccine supplies have been made available to the public by appointment on a website, miamidade.gov/vaccine, that typically takes reservations for 15 or 20 minutes before running out of vaccination slots.

During a presentation for Miami commissioners, Miami Fire Chief Joseph Zahralban said state officials on Thursday morning requested preparations to open the Marlins Park site Wednesday, with a goal of administering about 1,000 vaccines per day.

Creating vaccine restrictions

At Miami City Hall, commissioners unanimously instructed the fire department to create a new plan for vaccinating only city residents.

“If it’s a city of Miami program, let’s make it a city of Miami program for city of Miami residents,” Alex Díaz de la Portilla said. “Not for people from other parts of the county, not for people from other parts of the world. We are not the government of the world. We’re the government of the city of Miami. It should be for our residents, within the governor’s guidelines of 65 and over.”

Putting limits on eligibility is expected to come with a price for the city, according to Zahralban, because the state and county could withhold personnel for sites that restrict vaccines to city residents. The fire chief is expected to deliver a new plan, with a budget, by Tuesday morning.

Suarez’s promotion of a city-only vaccination program occurred at the same time Miami-Dade commissioners were meeting for a county vaccine briefing, where county administrators shot down the idea.

Frank Rollason, Miami-Dade’s emergency director, said federal rules bar residency restrictions.

“Any comers are to get vaccinated,” he said. “That’s the direction.”

Debate over Suarez’s ‘Miami First’ plan

Eileen Higgins, a county commissioner whose district includes parts of Miami, called it a bad idea to let cities reserve vaccine doses for their residents.

“We shouldn’t allow municipal borders to limit a person’s access to life-saving vaccines based on which side of the street they live on,” she said.

Suarez, who is in an election year, later gave his approach a slogan on Twitter: “MIAMI FIRST.”

His proposal would aim to curb so-called vaccine tourism, or foreigners who travel to Miami to receive the vaccine. Miami’s proximity to Latin America has made it attractive for foreigners with little confidence in the vaccination efforts of their home countries.

“Miami is an international city,” Suarez said. “We’re seeing a lot of high-profile people who are, in effect, saying that they got priority over our residents.”

Broward County Democratic Sen. Lauren Book raised the issue during a meeting of the Florida Senate Select Committee on Pandemic Preparedness and Response on Thursday. She pressed Surgeon General Scott Rivkees about “vaccine tourism” allegations and asked him why there are no residency requirements for seniors in Florida seeking a vaccination.

Rivkees explained the vaccines are a federal asset, and the federal government has instructed states to distribute the vaccine without restrictions. He said 97% of those vaccinated here are Florida residents.

When Book asked about local governments interested in passing ordinances to restrict inoculations, Rivkees said he did not have an answer as to whether that would be allowed.

He said if people are coming to Florida from out of state or out of the country, “that is something abhorrent and absolutely should not happen. If we are made aware of situations where things are happening, this is something that will be looked into.”

Suarez said he doesn’t know if it’s legal to limit vaccinations to Miami residents only, but he argued the distribution of federal aid during the pandemic should be a precedent.

“When we received federal funding for COVID, we were only allowed to administer it in the city of Miami,” he said. “So there are federal requirements that limit us to spending city resources on city residents. It’s very possible that if we’re going to be getting reimbursement for city expenses, we have to spend it on city residents.”

Suarez said he spoke with Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava on Thursday morning about the city’s supply of the vaccine, and that he would speak with her again about his proposal.

He told reporters he was “totally open to collaborating” with the county to vaccinate as many people as possible.

“I totally am open to having a more centralized, cooperative and collaborative process,” he said.

Another city that appears to be close to opening a new vaccination site, Doral, plans to offer doses to anyone who is eligible under state rules. Mayor JC Bermudez said his city has a deal with Baptist Health to administer vaccines at Legacy Park. He suggested that if a city tried to mount its own, insular vaccination effort — the kind of program Miami is mulling — it would be complicated.

“I don’t think this would be possible if we didn’t partner with Baptist,” Bermudez said, noting that Baptist has been dealing directly with the Department of Health and will provide its own doses of the vaccine. “If a city tries to do this on their own, I don’t think it’s that simple.”