Over 100,000 Alachua County residents have now been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
That total of 107,096 was among the key numbers that Florida Department of Health in Alachua County Administrator Paul Myers presented on Tuesday to county commissioners.
The number is positive, Myers said, but there's an obvious negative within. The 126,881 people who have received at least one shot is only slightly more than half of the 239,307 people in Alachua County who are eligible to receive the vaccine, which is now widely available to everyone 12 years of age and older.
"The bad news is that we have a lot more people we can vaccinate," he said. "We really encourage people to make that choice for themselves."
The vaccine does not completely stop transmissions or infections, but it is highly effective at stopping sickness or hospitalization from the coronavirus. Local hospitalizations have decreased steadily as the county's vaccination percentage has risen.
Myers said the county has seen a total of 54 "breakthrough cases," in which a person still gets infected despite having been vaccinated. Most of those were asymptomatic, he said, although one of the 54 who had "numerous" underlying conditions was hospitalized.