Orange County

AdventHealth to be first local hospital to receive COVID-19 vaccine

ORLANDO, Fla. — Pfizer said it may go to the Food and Drug Administration as early as Friday to ask for emergency approval for its COVID-19 vaccine.

If approved, the first doses of the vaccine could be administered in December.

AstraZeneca also said its vaccine is safe for the elderly.

INTERACTIVE MAP: Coronavirus cases in Florida

One of the first hospitals to get a vaccine locally will be AdventHealth.

The hospital said it doesn’t know how much of the vaccine it will get, or when or which company’s vaccine will be administered.

It’s likely health care workers will be the first, along with the most vulnerable, to receive the vaccine.

It will be weeks before the public can get it, so doctors are warning people to be vigilant while waiting.

READ: ‘This is not a joke’: COVID victim’s twin sister urges others to continue taking the virus seriously

Meanwhile, cases and hospitalizations due to the virus are going up.

“We’re not seeing a similar type of case counts like we are in other parts in the country, like the Midwest,” a doctor said. “But, we are seeing a steady increase in those numbers, just because it’s winter time. We’re getting into winter, I should say.”

READ: Lake County to offer free rapid COVID-19 testing

Doctors are also warning that holiday gatherings should be put on hold this year.

He said so many people who come into Centra Care with COVID-19 say they got it from a family member.

Shannon Butler

Shannon Butler, WFTV.com

Shannon joined the Eyewitness News team in 2013.

Katlyn Brieskorn, WFTV.com

Katlyn Brieskorn is a Digital Assignment Editor at WFTV. She joined Channel 9 in July 2019.