More Than Half of Flagler’s Seniors Have Been Vaccinated, But County’s Covid Deaths Now at 92

Last Updated: March 2

Here are the latest covid vaccination numbers as of Tuesday, March 2.

In Flagler County, 22,856 people have received at least one of the two required shots, an increase of 3,238 in a single week, and 9,902 have received both shots, an increase of nearly 3,000 in the past seven days, reflecting a surge of shots in what until now has been the most high-volume week of vaccinations in the county.

So far, 19.9 percent of the county’s population–a fifth of the county’s 115,000 people–has been inoculated with at least one shot, which in itself provides significant protection from severe complications from Covid-19. So far 19,311 of Flagler County’s 36,500 people who are 65 and over have been vaccinated with at least one shot, representing 53 percent of the senior population (age 65 and over), up from 45 percent seven days ago. That’s a higher proportion than in the state as a whole, where 47.1 percent of those 65 and over have been inoculated at least once.

In Florida, 3 million people have received at least one shot, or 14.1 percent of the population, and 1.7 million have received both shots, or nearly 8 percent, up from 6.5 percent seven days ago. A total of 4.7 million doses have been administered statewide, including 505,300 in the past seven days (up by about 30,000 over the previous week), an average of 72,185 shots per day statewide, according to the Florida Department of Health. Florida ranks 36th in the rate of inoculation among American states and the District of Columbia, falling significantly, from 27th, in the past seven days. Alaska is first, with nearly a quarter of its population getting at least one shot, followed by New Mexico, South Dakota, Connecticut and North Dakota, all of which have crossed the 20 percent threshold. Puerto Rico is at the bottom of the chart, at 11 percent, with Georgia, Texas, Washington, D.C. and Utah one point above.

In Flagler in the last seven days, 5,617 first or second doses have been administered at all locations–those run by the Flagler Health Department, Publix, AdventHealth Palm Coast and pharmacies inoculating residents of assisted living facilities and nursing homes–for an average of 802 shots per day. That’s up from 4,235 in the previous seven days. In the past seven days, 3,021 people in Flagler County have completed their two-dose series an increase of more than 1,000 over the previous week.




Flagler Health Department Chief Bob Snyder had predicted that the past seven days would be “our busiest week for administering vaccines to Flagler County residents,” and proved right, with the county’s waiting list of some 12,000 names depleted.

The health department continues to receive 1,600 doses a week. It is administering them primarily at the Flagler County Fairgrounds. “The whole concern about second doses is now a non-issue,” Flagler Emergency Management Chief Jonathan Lord said. The county’s 1,600 doses are in addition to the 1,200 weekly doses provided by four Publix stores and 400 doses CVS is doing weekly.

Keep in mind: Flagler’s vaccination numbers only reflect the total number of shots administered in the county. The numbers are not resident-specific. In other words, numerous residents from other counties may have gotten their shots in Flagler, just as numerous Flagler County residents are traveling to St. Johns, Volusia, Duval and elsewhere to get theirs.

Former County Commissioner Charlie Ericksen, who is 78, on Monday described his experience of going to Regency Mall in Jacksonville to get his first shot. “We pulled into the parking lot,” Ericksen said in an appearance before his former commission colleagues, “there was National Guard folks there, there were nurses there, there were hundreds of people. There was no wait. Three minutes, and I was inside in front of a person who took down my medical history, asked me about the vaccine shot. Within two minutes after that I was administered a shot, and I was put on a 10-minute leave to see if there was going to be any reaction, and then I was on my way home. Shots are available. They’re doing 1,000-plus people a day. There’s no crowds. There’s no cars in the parking lot. I don’t know why people don’t know that.”

Clearly, of course, people do know, given Flagler County’s numbers, though Ericksen said he never got a call back from his attempts to get a shot in Flagler–an experience echoed by other residents, too.




In the United States, 15 percent of the population has received at least one shot, 7.7 percent has received both. That places the United States in fourth place worldwide in the rate of vaccination, behind Israel, which has vaccinated 95 percent of its population with at least one shot (not including Palestinians under Israeli occupation), the United Arab Emirates (61 percent), and Great Britain (31 percent), according to Oxford University’s Our World in Data (see below).

The nation was inoculating just under 200,000 people per day in late December. The seven-day average was up to 900,000 a day by Jan. 20. It is now 1.8 million per day, exceeding the goal of 1.5 million per day President Biden set in order to have 100 million people inoculated in his first 100 days. At the current pace, half the population of the United States will be vaccinated with at least one dose by July 2, 70 percent by Sept. 10, and 90 percent by Thanksgiving, according to projections based on figures by the Centers for Disease Control. Last week, the 90 percent mark was expected to be reached by Christmas. The improvement signals the increase in dosages being administered, with yet more vaccines ahead, now that the Johnson & Johnson single-shot vaccine has been approved for distribution.

The disease itself continues to exact a steep toll. As of today, 92 Flagler County residents have died of the disease, 330 have been hospitalized, and 6,000 have been confirmed to have been infected. The actual number of infections is significantly higher, health department officials estimate.

In Florida, 1.9 million residents have been infected, 31,000 have died of the disease. Deaths in the United States from covid-19 are at 514,404. Nearly 29 million Americans have been infected.

Incidences of new coronavirus infections in Flagler have fallen significantly from their post-holiday peak, down to 134 for the week ending Feb. 13, the lowest weekly total since the week of Nov. 14. But the weekly totals have risen two weeks in a row since, to 161 for the week ending Saturday, despite limited testing (the health department held just two days of free testing last week, though clinics continue to test daily, but at a cost.)

“We had a nice precipitous drop, I think most of the country did too,” Lord said on Monday in a briefing to the county commission. “You see these little spikes of up and down but we’re staying lower than we were a month ago, so that’s a good sign. The lesson here is that Covid-19 is not over, even though vaccines are being pushed off, it’s not over. There’s still continuing virus spread and it’s important for workers, residents, visitors, to keep doing the very simple face-mask wearing, social distancing and frequent handwashing, those very simple activities really do make a difference.”

See also:

• Coronavirus Vaccination Worldwide
• The latest Flagler and Florida vaccination report
• CDC Covid vaccine data tracker
• The Feb. 23 vaccine update

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