Manatee County Will Begin Booking 9,600 Vaccination Appointments for Next Week

March 5, 2021 – Bradenton

Manatee County will begin contacting 4,500 seniors today to schedule next week’s COVID-19 vaccination appointments at Manatee County’s Public Safety Center for March 8-12. On Monday, another 5,100 seniors will be called for appointments at Bennett Park.

Public Safety Director Jacob Saur announced a new state-operated vaccination site at the Public Safety Center yesterday. The Florida Department of Emergency Management will administer first doses at the Public Safety Center over the next four weeks, followed by four weeks when they will administer second doses.

The Manatee County Public Safety Center is located at 2101 47th Terrace E, Bradenton. The state-operated site will open on Monday from noon to 5 p.m. and it will administer 500 doses. Then, beginning Tuesday March 9 1,000 doses a day will be administered from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., five days a week.

“We’re looking forward to having an additional vaccine site in Manatee County to get even more seniors vaccinated,” said Manatee County Public Safety Director Jacob Saur. “We will be starting to significantly lower the number of people waiting in the vaccine standby pool by having this site up and running. As we continue to ramp up our vaccination efforts, those waiting in the standby pool should be getting notified very soon.”

Manatee County will be using an automated appointment booking system to notify the patients randomly selected. The calls should appear from a familiar number, the same number Manatee County Call Center has used to book appointments for several weeks: (941) 742-4300. Those who are in the vaccine standby pool do not need to program a new number in their phones.

Vaccine recipients will be randomly selected from the standby pool. When you are selected, you will receive an automated phone call from (941) 742-4300 to schedule your appointment. You will also receive a text message from 88911 and/or an email if you provided a mobile phone number or email address with your registration.

Those who are notified for an appointment should respond quickly. Those who do not respond within two hours will be placed back in the standby pool.

When the call or text arrives, seniors will see three options:
Select 1 if you can attend the scheduled appointment date and time.
Select 2 if you cannot attend the scheduled appointment date and time. You will be entered back into the standby pool to be selected at another time.
Select 3 if you have already received the vaccine and/or want to be removed from the standby pool.

After you select one of these options, you will receive a follow-up message via phone, text and/or email confirm your appointment date, time and location. Learn more about the process and view a brief video here.

To enroll in the county’s vaccination pool, visit vax.mymanatee.org or call 311.