After nearly a month and a half since the beginning of distribution, all 254 Texas counties have now received COVID-19 vaccines.
“Texas has administered 81% the first doses, 61% of second doses. Overall, 78% of those doses allocated to the states have already been administered,” said Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
“Getting a large population vaccinated is going to help us so much. There are so many of the hospitals that are running low on ICU beds and several counties inundated with patients,” said Texas A&M University-Central Texas Department of Nursing Director & Chair Amy Mersiovsky.
Even though over 1.1 million vaccines have been administered in the Lone Star State, there are problems.
Bell County officials say they were told by the state that Monday morning's shipment of 3,900 doses of the Pfizer vaccine could not be guaranteed. This caused a frantic rush to reschedule as well as confusion.
“There’s all those patients that they’re having to shuffle. 1A and 1Bs, a lot of those patients are a little, a lot older. They may need somebody to drive them. It just makes it a real hardship for everyone,” said Mersiovsky.
The delay also impacts those set to take their second dose of the vaccine. Bell County officials confirmed they received their shipment Tuesday and plan on starting shots Wednesday morning.
Governor Abbott also announced the state should receive around 843,000 more doses later this week.
“Receiving those additional vaccines will massively increase the supplies we have in Houston and across the entire state of Texas and being able to vaccinate far more people,” said Governor Abbott.
Abbott said officials plan to open up more large-scale vaccination hubs around the state to help pick up the pace on getting Texans protected.
