The Houston area will receive the influx of doses of the COVID-19 vaccine this week

The Houston metropolitan area is expected to receive an influx of more than 62,000 COVID-19 vaccines this week, driven by an increase in the number of vaccines provided to the state by the federal government and large allocations to Houston area providers, state officials announced Friday .

“The increase in available vaccine is due to two factors: a 30% increase in the number of doses of Moderna delivered to the state by the federal government and a single return of 126,750 doses of the Pfizer vaccine that Texas was required to reserve for the federal program pharmaceutical partnership for long-term care, ”state health officials said in a statement. “The program overestimated the amount of vaccine needed, so doses are being returned to the states.”

The Texas State Department of Health Services said it is allocating doses of the long-term care program to providers in counties where allocations “have been significantly less than their share of the population, particularly in suburban areas of Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston. “

Ads

In all, Texas will receive 520,425 first doses of the federal government’s COVID-19 vaccine in the week of February 1. More than 62,000 of these doses will be given to providers in the Houston metropolitan area, including Harris, Fort Bend, Liberty, Montgomery, Chambers and Galveston Counties. The Harris County Department of Public Health and the City of Houston Department of Public Health are scheduled to receive 9,000 vaccines each.

In addition to the first doses coming in, the state ordered 188,225 doses intended to be the second dose for people vaccinated for the first time a few weeks ago.

Currently, Texans are eligible for the vaccine only if they are frontline health professionals, residents of nursing homes aged 65 or over, or have a medical condition that puts them at greater risk of hospitalization and death from COVID-19.

“The vaccine remains limited based on the manufacturers’ ability to produce it, so it will take time for Texas to receive enough vaccine for everyone in the priority populations who want to be vaccinated,” state health officials said in a statement. “Currently, there is not enough vaccine to provide vaccine to all providers every week.”

Ads

As of Friday, providers in Texas administered nearly 2.2 million doses of the vaccine. More than 1.75 million people received at least one dose and more than 410,000 received both doses.