ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Orange County has been denied access to one of the tools they use to target areas with vaccinations.   

What You Need To Know

  •  The Florida Department of Health has taken away Orange County officials' access to the state's vaccination rate database

  •  According to a county official, the move was in response to Orange County releasing data to a local media outlet

  • County officials say they don't need access to the database to target areas in need of the COVID-19 vaccine

The Florida Department of Health said the county can no longer use a database showing vaccination rates throughout the area. 

For the past week, Barber Park is where many have shown up to get vaccinated. 

“I thinks it’s definitely important,” said Lillian Aguirre. 

Aguirre just got her first dose in Oviedo, but said a lot of her neighbors near Barber Park need a vaccination site closer to home. 

Leaders have been targeting areas like Barber Park where underserved communities might be missing out on a dose, but identifying those areas could get more difficult in the future for Orange County leaders. 

This week, FDOH officials said Orange County could no longer access the COVID-19 state database, which shows vaccination rates.    

“We’re going to work around at this point  — the work around that we’re doing seems to be working for us,” said Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings.

Demings said the state data they no longer have access to is just part of what they use to target areas with vaccines. 

“That’s just one subset of information that we have used in our decision making, but we have other means of getting information that we can use to assist in our process,” he said. 

Demings said he doesn’t know why the state has restricted access to the database. 

In a copy of an email sent to Spectrum News 13 by county communications, an assistant county attorney writes, “access to the DOH database has been terminated as a result of our disclosing the requested information.”

The assistant county attorney is referring to a public records request made by a local television station for zip code breakdowns of vaccination rates.

Spectrum News 13 asked Demings if the county would consider litigation against the state to get back access to the database. 

“If I though it was prohibiting us from being able to do the work to keep our people safe, yeah, we would file litigation,” he said. 

Demings said it’s not prohibiting their vaccination efforts right now. 

Spectrum News 13 reached out to the Florida Department of Health to ask why they’re restricting access to the database, but has not recieved a response.