Jax Beach vaccination company fans out across state to deliver Covid shots (Courtesy of the Jacksonville Business Journal) — A Jacksonville Beach company specializing in mass vaccinations will be deploying to sites across the First Coast beginning this week as part of a $2.7 million state contract to deliver Covid-19 vaccinations.
For the past month, teams with Health Hero Florida have been fanning out across the state, bringing mobile Covid vaccination operations to primarily rural and other underserved communities.
“In the first four weeks, we’ve delivered 15,000 vaccinations in markets that most likely would not have been touched or reached,” company President Jeff Lott told the Business Journal last week.
In normal times, Health Hero’s job is to deliver vaccinations in schools. Over the past nine years, the company has operated in 14 states, including Florida, running pop-up vaccination clinics that the company says have provided over a million flu and MMR vaccination shots to students.
The contract with the state to provide Covid shots came out of contacts the company had developed through its years of working with school districts. In March, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Health Hero would be implementing a pilot program in Highlands, Glades, Levy, Putnam, Dixie and Gilchrist counties.
“Our mission remains clear: We are ensuring that every senior who wants a shot, gets a shot,” DeSantis said at the time. “Through this pilot program, we hope to significantly expand vaccine availability in underserved communities in our state’s most rural counties.”
The company is now active in more than a dozen counties, with Duval, Clay and Nassau launching this week.
The company has been employing about three dozen nurses; as more counties are added, that number is growing.
Working through local health departments, the teams go out to places like rural senior centers — areas where there is a sizable group of people, but one that might not have transportation to existing vaccination operations.
“A lot of the federal dollars have been going to these big pods. It’s these outlying areas that haven’t been reached,” Lott said. “We were awarded this because of our mobility and our ability to go anywhere.”
The state contract runs through this month, but Lott said Health Hero is looking to continue the work as long as it’s needed.
Its other focus: bringing its mass vaccination operations to private employers and other large groups.
“Now that the age group is going down to 18, we’ll find ourselves in a lot more of those conversations,” Lott said. “We’re just waiting for the regulations to change.”
Photo courtesy of Daniel Schludi