January 2021: SMH Helps Protect Community with COVID-19 Shot

2021 kicked off with the limited rollout of new COVID-19 vaccines. Thousands of Sarasota Memorial staff and physicians were among the first groups eligible to receive the shot, and thousands of team members were vaccinated at SMH Moderna vaccine clinics starting in December of 2020.

But as 2021 got under way, the vaccine remained in very short supply throughout the community, with eligibility restricted primarily to those 65 and older. To help get the shots in as many eligible arms as possible, Sarasota Memorial partnered with the Florida Department of Health in Sarasota in January to administer about 3,000 COVID-19 vaccinations to community members age 65-plus at a special clinic held at the hospital.

Later on, SMH also hosted vaccine clinics in Newtown to bring the vaccine to communities of color, which were among those hardest hit by the pandemic. To help protect patients and limit staff shortages, SMH used some of its Moderna allotment to vaccinate eligible family members of staff. The hospital also gave shots to certain high-risk patient populations.

Ultimately, SMH vaccinated tens of thousands of people with its supply of Moderna during much of 2021, until vaccines became widely available throughout the community in the spring.

To date, about 85 percent of the health system’s nearly 8,000 employees received the shot.

Click on the link below for a news story about our January 2021 community vaccine clinic.