Walmart has begun offering COVID-19 vaccine appointments to people under the age of 65 with comorbidities, but Thursday, they had to admit that was a mistake.
AdventHealth first started vaccinating people under 65 who’d been deemed “extremely vulnerable” last week.
59-year-old Type-two diabetic Curt Bigelow told Channel 9′s Megan Cruz then he was eager to get the shot.
READ: UK COVID-19 variant found on UCF campus
“If I had the choice of winning one of those two lotteries that were close to a billion dollars, or getting a vaccine, I would much rather get the vaccine,” Bigelow said.
#BREAKING: @CarlosGSmith just confirmed with @Walmart that it MISTAKENLY started making appointments for extremely vulnerable people. The store is doing this in other states, but Florida has said only HOSPITALS can vaccinate those people. PLS READ NEXT TWEET...
— Megan Cruz (@MeganWFTV) February 11, 2021
However, Bigelow wasn’t able to arrange an appointment because AdventHealth didn’t include Type-two diabetes or coronary heart disease in its list of qualifying medical conditions.
So this week, when Bigelow was able to book a vaccination appointment through Walmart, he was understandably thrilled again.
“Elated...that’s the only word I can use to describe it.”
Walmart started booking vaccine appointments this week as part of a federal program to increase access to doses.
Bigelow went to Walmart’s booking site, confirmed he has comorbidities and which ones, then got registered.
READ: CDC considering requiring COVID-19 test for domestic flights
He says he was speechless when he learned hours later the appointment was a mistake.
“They accidentally invited medically vulnerable people to be vaccinated,” Florida State Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith explained. “Hospitals have really only been inoculating those patients that are in-network...that are actually at one of their facilities.”
Smith says he was initially excited to learn that Walmart would also start administering the vaccines to that group, but when he called the company for clarification, they began to backtrack.
🚨 IMPORTANT UPDATE 🚨 We’ve just found out that @Walmart mistakenly opened up COVID vaccines to under 65 with co-morbidities and are halting appointments for that group. We demanded they honor already booked appointments and I’ve been assured by the state THEY WILL BE HONORED!
— Rep. Carlos G Smith (@CarlosGSmith) February 11, 2021
“I’m reassured that those who did actually manage to book appointments with Walmart who are under 65 and medically vulnerable will have their appointments honored,” Smith says.
A spokesperson with the Florida Department of Health confirms Walmart actually shouldn’t be administering vaccines to that particular group of Floridians because of an executive order by Governor Ron DeSantis.
There are states where Walmart has appropriately started booking appointments for vulnerable people under 65, but Florida isn’t one of them.
The Governor’s order states only hospitals can do that work. Rep. Smith says they’ll “absolutely” be urging DeSantis to revise the order.
READ: COVID-19: Can wearing 2 masks make a difference?
“It’s like saying, okay, here’s the lottery numbers and you’re a winner. Oh wait, that was videotape from the night before...you’re really not a winner,” Bigelow says.
Again, Walmart has released a statement confirming that those people who successfully booked appointments will still have those appointments honored.
Cox Media Group
