The COVID vaccine rollout in Palm Beach County is drawing national attention after being highlighted in a "60 Minutes" report.
The show on CBS Sunday night featured a segment on alleged "vaccination inequities" in Florida, something Governor DeSantis has consistently refuted.
One aspect of the report focused on minority communities around Lake Okeechobee that had trouble getting to a Publix.
Reporter Sharyn Alfonsi showed up at a recent DeSantis press conference in Brevard County and brought up that Publix donated $100,000 to his campaign and said that he "rewarded them with the exclusive rights to distribute the vaccination in Palm Beach. How is that not pay to play?"
The governor responded "What you're saying is wrong" and calling it a "fake narrative."
The "pay to play" accusation is something that's also been refuted by Florida's outgoing Emergency Management Director Jared Moskowitz, a Democrat and former member of the state House of Representatives. Last month, he put out an email to set the record straight after a Miami Herald report was released.
In it, he wrote “Allegations that Publix is an outlier in how it administers and transfers vaccine or receives preferential treatment are false.”
The email went on: “Suggestions that Publix is receiving vaccine because of political favoritism are unfounded and utter nonsense. When the vaccine first arrived in Florida, we reached out to all pharmacies and Publix was the only one who at the time could execute on the mission.”
DeSantis tells Alfonsi that the county mayor was given options for administering the vaccine and they preferred Publix. Mayor Dave Kerner, after meeting with DeSantis in January, announced to reporters that he had "some very good insight on a distribution plan utilizing Publix." He also said that he was "delighted to say that the governor continues to listen to our need and react."
Governor DeSantis soon announced plans to make the supermarket chain the main source for the COVID vaccine in Palm Beach County, citing that 90 percent of seniors in the county live within a half mile of a Publix. But soon after County Commissioner Melissa McKinlay, who is cited in the "60 Minutes" report, reached out to the state about the lack of a Publix in the Glades, the governor worked with former NFL star and Pahokee native Anquan Boldin on opening a vaccine site in his hometown.
McKinlay, a frequent critic of DeSantis, gave credit to the governor and Moskowitz for moving quickly on her request to get more access to the vaccine for the underserved people living in the Glades. The comments were made during a Palm Beach County Commission meeting last month.
Publix on Monday also refuted the "pay to play" claims.
The supermarket tweeted that "irresponsible suggestion that there was a connection between campaign contributions made to Governor DeSantis and our willingness to join other pharmacies in support of the state's vaccine distribution efforts is absolutely false and offensive." The messaged went on to state "We are proud of pharmacy associates for administering more than 1.5 million doses of vaccine to date and for joining other retailers in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia to do our part to help our communities emerge from the pandemic."
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