ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — As the spike of new COVID-19 cases continues to rise in Florida, the situation has made many people in the Bay area rethink their first decision to not get vaccinated.  

One man we talked to, Jordan Miller, said his mother-in-law was pretty convincing.

“She texted me saying my wife didn’t want to be an early widow,” he said.

Miller is part of a new surge of people rolling up their sleeves in hopes of downgrading the symptoms of the delta variant.

“CVS has administered nearly 24,000,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses through its participation in the Pharmacy Partnership for long-term care Program and the Federal Retail Pharmacy Program,“ company officials told Spectrum News in an email. 

At the same time, though, clinics throughout the region are being kept very busy.

“We’ve seen thousands of people,” said Dr. Robert Lufkin at AFC Urgent Care in St. Petersburg. “And typically we see people who have a headache and malaise and feel rundown. They just feel rundown, so they have a fever, cough, shortness of breath, loss of taste and smell, the whole deal.”

Lufkin said most of the COVID-19 patients he’s seen are younger, like Miller, who says he’s done taking chances.

“Yeah I had COVID, so I thought I had antibodies and didn't really need the shot,” he said. “But now that the new variant is out, why not have extra help.”

At the AFC Urgent Care, of the 80 patients they see every day, half of them are getting COVID tests but doctors here say they’re encouraged that things are going to get better before they get any worse.

“Already, they’re seeing a major drop in cases in Great Britain," Lufkin said. “We’ve already seem a tail-off in the peak in most states. Florida we’re just at the peak, but a lot of them are on the down slope. I’m optimistic that this is not going to be a long-term thing. My advice is either get the vaccine or get the disease.”