State health officials on Saturday announced 79 suppliers of centers expected to receive doses of COVID-19 vaccines this week, including recently designated centers in some Houston suburbs.
Hub suppliers include two in Galveston County, one each in Fort Bend County, Montgomery County and Liberty County and six in Harris County, according to a list of hubs that are intended to focus on efforts mass vaccination. Authorities plan to distribute 333,650 first doses of COVID-19 vaccines to 260 providers across the state. In addition, the state will order about 500,000 doses that are expected to be the second for people who received their first injection a few weeks ago.
Earlier this month, the three centers in the Houston region were all in Harris County, making authorities in some neighboring counties fear they had been overlooked. The Texas Department of Health Services said earlier that more centers were likely to be added, but that the main obstacle was the lack of vaccines.
“Last week, Texas became the first state to administer 1 million doses of vaccine, and the vaccine was administered to residents of all 254 counties,” said state health officials when announcing the distribution of the week’s doses. “The vaccine remains limited based on the ability of manufacturers 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.”
The Medical Department at the University of Texas at Galveston welcomed the news of being named a hub.
“We are pleased to receive this designation and look forward to working with our partners in the region to vaccinate our patients and our community, as soon as supplies for mass vaccination efforts are received,” said UTMB in a statement on its website. “We continue to focus on vaccinating as many individuals as quickly as possible, based on the supplies available to us and state guidelines.”