COVID-19 vaccine available at Heart of Florida Health Center

OCALA, Fla. (WCJB) - With appointments to receive the COVID-19 vaccine filling up fast, Saturday maybe the best opportunity for many to get the shot.

The Heart of Florida Health Center is the latest agency to start providing the vaccine.

This week, 1,200 health care providers were vaccinated at the Heart of Florida Health Center.

“We are extremely excited as a staff, as a team to know that this is a life saving measure,” Heart of Florida Health Center CEO, Jamie Ulmer said.

And this includes doctors we might not immediately think about.

“I think especially in the dental profession, every one of my patients when they come in they have to take their mask off for me to work on them. My patients have been very truthful with me I feel. We screen everybody, we take their temperature and so forth but there’s still always that question,” Ocala General Dentist, James Wilkerson said.

Wilkerson was in and out without more than a little pinch, “I’m in my 70′s. I’ve been blessed with good health but that doesn’t make any difference. The disease is a respecter of no persons,” Wilkerson said, and it doesn’t stop there.

“Tomorrow will kick off our event of vaccinating 65 year olds and above,” Ulmer said.

700 patients have signed up already and they are prepared to handle hundreds more.

And starting on Monday, the health center will start providing regularly scheduled vaccine appointments at all seven of their sites.

“It’s not the average, normal operation that we normally do but we know what today’s time is like and we know that our providers are up to the challenge. We have dentists, we have doctors, we have our residents that are all going to be coming together as a team tomorrow for tomorrow’s event and going forward we will continue to vaccinate,” Ulmer said.

And that’s exactly what the doctor ordered.

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