During his speech at the border wall in Alamo, Texas, on Tuesday, President Donald Trump discussed his government’s main achievements.
In addition to talking about immigration and border security, Trump noted the rapid development of the COVID-19 vaccine.
“Nobody thought it was possible,” said Trump. “They said it would take five years … Well, we did exactly as I said we would.”
The claim
Trump then mentioned launching the vaccine in all 50 states and congratulated the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, for handling the vaccine administration.
“And now we are handing it over to states, including your state, where your governor and government are doing an excellent job of running it in Texas.”
The facts
Texas is doing well compared to other states in terms of administering the vaccine.
On January 12, the CDC reported that 27.7 million doses of the vaccine were distributed throughout the country, but only one third (9.3 million) were administered.
In most states, only 2.8% of the population received the vaccine. Texas is in the middle range of states. With a population of 29 million, Texas administered the vaccine to 3.1 percent of its population. This is higher than New York (3 percent) and California (2.1 percent).
Abbott boasted on Twitter of a Bloomberg report that ranked Texas in second place among the top 20 states for the percentage of shots used. On January 13, Texas administered 911,461 doses of the vaccine, 46.8 percent of the vaccines distributed to the state.
Texas administered more doses of the Covid vaccine than any other state.
We ranked second among the top 20 states for the percentage of shots used.
Our numbers will continue to improve because we are now using large-scale vaccination sites.
Everything starting today. pic.twitter.com/2NlU7jEnB1
– Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) January 13, 2021
Abbott said Texas expects to see an additional 310,000 first doses per week for the rest of January and up to 500,000 second doses for those who have already received the first dose of the vaccine in the previous weeks. Continued increases are expected, Abbott said, depending on federal government allocations.
The state has established 28 centers designated for the administration of the vaccine. Phase 1A included doctors and health professionals, while 1B includes people over 65 and people over 16 with certain serious health conditions.
Abbott told the Texas Tribune that its only limitation at this point is supply, which is not something that the state of Texas controls.
“The supply of the vaccine comes only from the federal government and, for them, it comes largely from the manufacturing capacity” of the companies that manufacture the vaccine, said Abbot.
Texas Health Commissioner John Hellerstedt said the rate and scale of the state’s deployment has been “a really incredible operation” and said that setting up the centers would increase the administration fee.
Our goal is, by the end of the week, to have no more vaccines.
Judge B. Glen Whitley of Tarrant County
“Our goal is, by the end of the week, to have no more vaccines,” said Tarrant County Judge B. Glen Whitley.
As of January 13, Texas had 22,270 new confirmed cases and a total of 1,775,619 confirmed cases, 247,016 probable cases and 30,624 deaths, according to the Texas State Department of Health Services. Johns Hopkins University and the New York Times are reporting total cases in more than 2 million. The state is registering a trend of increasing new cases since Christmas.
Like most other states, the initial launch of the vaccine came with some confusion and logistical challenges.
In late December, Hellerstedt issued a letter urging “the entities that received vaccines to administer their entire quota at all deliberate speed.” The letter said that a significant part of the vaccines probably had not yet been administered. The department asked vaccine facilities to create schedules and use a “sense of urgency” to use the injections.
“We hope that you know your situation much better than we do, so we ask that you take the initiative and move forward aggressively with the administration of all doses of vaccine you received,” the letter said.
In early 2021, the Texas Tribune said the implementation of vaccination has been “confusing” so far, with medical experts and others unsure about how the state planned to administer the vaccine to some 30 million people. There were “vague messages” about details about who was eligible to receive the vaccination, where to get it and how to schedule vaccination from state authorities, along with technical errors, logistical delays and even shortages of supplies in some areas.
Hospitals, pharmacies and health centers have had to build new scheduling systems from scratch and have struggled to keep up with the “anxious audience who wonder when it will be their turn to have the injection”.
When Texas announced open vaccination for the second group – those over 65 or people aged 16 and over with certain health conditions, many health care providers were taken by surprise. According Texas Tribune, congested phone lines, blocked sites and longer lines.
According Texas Tribune, at Memorial Hermann, a link was emailed to 50,000 selected and qualified patients to schedule their vaccine at one of seven public clinics. But some recipients have started forwarding this link to friends and family, and even posting it on Instagram. All vacancies were reserved after 36 hours and people who should not be enrolled were on the schedule. Team members had to refuse people if they did not meet the state’s criteria for receiving the vaccine at that time.
Experts said it could take weeks for some providers to get enough vaccines to start administering Phase 1B members. There are almost 4 million adults who fall into this range. As of January 12, Texas had just over 2 million doses of the vaccine, according to the state’s COVID-19 vaccination panel.
During the first week, December 14, the state allocated 224,250 doses to 110 providers. In the second week, December 21, some 620,000 doses of Moderna and Pfizer vaccines were allocated to more than 1,100 suppliers in 185 counties. These vaccines were for people in phase 1A, mainly doctors and healthcare professionals. In the third week, December 28, 257,000 doses were supplied to more than 350 providers in 94, with 121,875 additional doses from Pfizer for long-term care facilities. At that time, a total of 1.2 million doses were administered to 199 municipalities.
On January 4, more than 325,000 first doses were allocated to almost 950 providers in 158 counties, including 121,875 doses that went to pharmacies and long-term care facilities. About 1.5 million doses reached 214 municipalities.
In week 5, January 11, about 234 providers received the first doses and about 500,000 second doses for those vaccinated weeks ago. At this point, the vaccine was administered to residents in all 254 counties in Texas.
The state estimates that vaccines will be available to the general public in the spring.
The decision
Mostly true.
Texas is reporting some of the best numbers for vaccine administration in the country. For the state with the second largest population, its implementation has been successful so far.