Kriseman grades the state’s vaccine rollout

When it comes to grading the state’s rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine, St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman doesn’t mince words. 

“I’d give it an F,” he said without hesitating for a second. “I’m an optimist so I tried to be hopeful and optimistic that it wouldn’t be a cluster, but unfortunately it has been and I can’t say I was surprised.”

For Kriseman, the seemingly disjointed approach to the vaccine rollout is just the latest example of poor pandemic management from Gov. Ron DeSantis.

“This is what happens when you have a complete lack of leadership from the administration in Tallahassee and beyond that, in Washington,” Kriseman said during a recent interview with the Catalyst. “When you’ve got a governor who basically washes his hands and says ‘not my responsibility, you guys figure it out,’ this is what you get.”

Kriseman, who has not gotten the vaccine and said he has no plans to use his position to jump the line, understands that people were frustrated with the reservation system launched earlier this week by the Florida Department of Health in Pinellas County. Many seniors and their families spent hours online and on the phone trying to secure an appointment time before being told that all 3,000 doses of the vaccine had been spoken for by early Tuesday afternoon. However, he urged residents not to get angry with the leadership at the county level, where people are doing the best they can with the limited resources they have.

“I knew what [the county] wanted to accomplish with the vaccines, but what we didn’t know was how successful they would be able to be because basically everything they wanted to do was reliant on Tallahassee,” he said, noting that communications from the top have been abysmal and inconsistent. “You need to be upset at what’s happening in the state. You need to be talking to your state representatives and senators and the governor.”

DeSantis, Kriseman said, seems to be making up his pandemic plan as he goes.

“We always felt throughout the process that he would give a press conference and then his staff would struggle to draft an order that matched what he said, and some of the stuff came out of nowhere,” Kriseman observed. “It does feel like a lot of it is being made up on the fly and that there isn’t really a lot of thought going into it. When you’re just making it up as you go, you’re always behind the eight ball in trying to put what you said into action.”

Along those lines, Kriseman said he’s in regular communication with Pinellas County Administrator Barry Burton about plans to work together to set up and staff vaccination sites. The problem is they don’t have enough information from the state to move forward with anything concrete at this point. 

“As Barry said, what good does it do us other than to be ready – and that’s important – but we can’t pull the trigger on putting plans into place if we don’t know if we’re ever getting the vaccines,” Kriseman said, frustration in his voice. “Are they giving them to us? Are they giving them to hospitals? Are they giving them to CVS and Walgreens? Where the hell are they going? We don’t know and we can’t get clear answers.”

And because of that, Kriseman doesn’t want to make any promises regarding the vaccine that he can’t keep. 

“The last thing we want to do is further stoke the fire of anger by saying we’re going to open a vaccination site somewhere and you can go online and make reservations,” he said. “Well, if we don’t know we’re getting the vaccines and we have everybody ready and say we’re going to open the site on this date and we don’t get the vaccines, we can’t open it and people will be pissed at us – and rightfully so.”

For those who have already experienced the frustration of trying to sign up for a vaccine and may be feeling leery of trying again, Kriseman urges patience as we approach the long-awaited light at the end of the tunnel.

“People have to recognize this is a herculean effort unlike any we’ve ever done in the history of our country, at least for the last 100 years, and unfortunately we’re going to make mistakes,” he said. “It’s our job to limit those, and I certainly hope that the state will get its act together. I wish I could say I was optimistic, but I’m not completely.”

And while Kriseman empathizes with everyone who is disappointed with how the vaccine rollout is going so far – and just plain tired of the pandemic in general – he encourages stepping back, finding things to be thankful for and being kind to one another. 

“This pandemic has given us a chance to see who we are as a people and recognize we have a ways to go to become better kinder, more compassionate human beings. We’re not there yet,” he said. “This is when our humanity really needs to shine.”