WACO, Texas (KWTX) – With the closure of Bell County vaccination centers on Thursday and Friday and the potential for further closings next week, health leaders in Bell County have determined that the county has more doses in risk of expiring on Monday than it has the capacity to distribute through its vaccination posts.
The health district said that approximately 2,334 doses were at risk of expiring by midnight on Tuesday, February 16.
The county is actively working on several courses of action to ensure that none of the thawed vaccines are wasted.
These courses of action include using the existing vaccination waiting list, contacting a local health care provider, and involving the three largest school districts in Bell County.
“Our first course of action was to determine the maximum number of new appointments we could add to our first dosing sites on Saturday,” said Bell County Judge David Blackburn.
“We were able to fill these vacancies quickly by directly contacting the individuals on our waiting list.”
At the same time, the Bell County public health district says it contacted the Cedar Crest Hospital in Belton to determine whether the hospital vaccinated all of its staff and patients.
The hospital said they did not have and would like to set up an emergency vaccination site to vaccinate their staff and patients.
“For the remaining doses, we focused on local groups that would be able to mobilize quickly, scale to the numbers that were needed in the short term and had an in-house medical team capable of administering the doses,” said Judge Blackburn.
“To do this, we work with Bell County’s three largest school districts to organize vaccination campaigns for their teachers and staff.”
Several area school districts, Killeen ISD, Belton ISD and Temple ISD have agreed to receive and administer 325 doses and will be hosting vaccine sites on Saturday, February 13.
“We would like to extend our sincere thanks to Cedar Crest Hospital, Killeen ISD, Belton ISD and Temple ISD for working during this weather event and helping the district to use vaccines that would otherwise be wasted,” The Bell County Public Health District said .
The Belton school district is running a vaccination clinic for district staff on Saturday to prevent Bell County’s COVID-19 doses from expiring.
The clinic will be held on Saturday at 11 am at the Pittenger Fine Arts Center located at 400 North Wall Belton, Texas 76513.
The Belton ISD Health Services team will administer COVID-19 vaccines to district officials today at the Pittenger Fine Arts Center.
The school district “quickly mobilized nurses and staff volunteers to create a vaccine site that would provide staff with access to the vaccine.”
Killeen ISD will administer vaccines at the transport center.
The clinic starts at 10 am and ends at 2 pm on Saturday, February 13.
KISD vaccines are for transport workers.
“We extend our sincere thanks to the Bell County Public Health District for the opportunity to use vaccines at the risk of not being administered,” says Belton ISD.
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