The Plant City Police Department has confirmed its officers are now hunting for a 2018 gray Hyundai Accent that was taken from a parking lot at 2805 West Reynolds Street in Plant City on Wednesday afternoon.
Police said the vehicle contained COVID-19 vaccine doses set to be distributed at the East Strawberry Festival Fairgrounds. It had a Florida license plate of NPJ J58, law enforcement said.
Police said the car was driven to the location by a site worker who had been helping to distribute the vials. The person, who is not a suspect, left the vehicle unattended while asking for directions on where they should go.
Authorities have not confirmed how many vaccine vials are believed to have been in the vehicle at the time of the incident—or their specific brand. It remains unclear how the COVID vaccine vials were being stored while being transported inside the car.
Officials described the suspect as a thin and light-skinned male in his early 20s with long hair, who was wearing a light-colored hoodie.
Detectives attended to the location on Thursday and a nationwide alert was put out for the stolen vehicle. Police urged anyone with information to come forward and released some brief video footage of a person being sought in connection with the incident.
The Hillsborough County Department of Health began vaccinating residents age 65 and older on January 6. Second doses started on January 25.
The agency lists four vaccine distribution sites: the North University Mall parking lot in Tampa, the South Vance Vogel Sports Complex in Gibsonton, West Ed Radice Sports Complex in Tampa and the East Strawberry Festival Fairgrounds in Plant City.
The Plant City Police Department was contacted by Newsweek.
According to the Hillsborough County COVID-19 dashboard, which logs daily statistics about the coronavirus pandemic, the county has recorded a total of 101,910 cases and 1,348 deaths as of February 4. On Wednesday, the county had 357 new cases.
In terms of testing, health officials said that as of February 4 there had been a total of 1,003,435 conducted, with 99,911 positive results. As of February 2, 56,946 residents had a first vaccine dose, while 22,840 residents had their second dose.
On Wednesday, the Florida Department of Health said in a release that it was calling for an official audit of the Palm Beach County Health Care District after the agency reported damage to more than 1,000 doses of COVID vaccine over the past week.
“It is a tragedy that even one dose of this critical resource would go to waste and not be used to save a life,” said the state’s surgeon general, Dr. Scott Rivkees.
Rivkees added: “In Florida, we have been diligent to preserve and utilize every single dose of the vaccine. While we must rely on partners to distribute this critical resource, we expect that every provider treat the vaccine as the precious commodity that it is.”
