Texas’ COVID-19 vaccinations efforts among tops in U.S. Is it enough?
Texas has administered 56% of its COVID-19 vaccines, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a better percentage than all but 12 states and the District of Columbia.
But is that enough as the state warns hospitals can’t handle another surge?
“I don’t see Texas as way worse or better than any other state,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, the dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine in the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. “They’re all doing bad.”
Texas should be aiming to vaccinate three-quarters of its estimated nearly 30 million people within six months, Hotez said. Nationwide, he’d like to see upwards of 100 million doses administered each month “to really get our arms around this virus” and help stop its transmission.
“That’s like 3 million Americans a day,” Hotez said. “We’re just not there. We don’t have a system in place, so that’s what I’ve really been pushing hard to get.”
Texas is tracking with the U.S. as a whole when looking at the percent of people given at least one shot — 5.1% in Texas and 5.2% nationally, according to an analysis by the New York Times.
Providers across the state began administering shots the week of Dec. 14, soon after the Pfizer vaccine was authorized for use. Gov. Greg Abbott has said more doses are expected in the state as more vaccines are authorized.
The tracking of vaccines administered got off to a rocky start in part because of technical challenges with the state’s immunization registry, ImmTrac2. Gov. Greg Abbott suggested vaccines were sitting on hospital shelves unused after the state’s numbers showed a gap in the number of vaccines received compared to those administered. The Texas Hospital Association disputed this assertion, pointing to “known challenges with the ImmTrac2 reporting system.”
Lara Anton, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of State Health Services, said in a statement the state is working with providers to address issues with submitting their data.
There have also been reports across the state of confusion about who qualifies for the vaccine and how to get it. Tarrant County, which has been one of the state’s hot spots, announced Tuesday that it will prioritize vaccinations for people in the county’s 10 hardest-hit ZIP codes.
Vaccines in Texas remain reserved for health care workers, first responders, those in long-term care facilities, people who are 65 and older and those with a medical condition.
Texas recently turned to vaccination “hubs” to simplify the process by sending more vaccines to a smaller number of providers. The tactic earned Abbott’s praise during a Tuesday news conference, when he said the opening of the sites has allowed Texas to “tremendously accelerate vaccinations.”
Abbott has also bragged that the state — the nation’s second-most populous — was the first to administer 1 million doses of vaccine.
There is some variance between the CDC numbers and numbers reported by the Texas Department of State Health Services. The state reported Saturday that 1.7 million of the 2.7 million doses shipped to the state had been administered — 63%. Anton said the department believes the difference is related to the timing of when the data is posted.
“Texas continues to lead the way for the nation,” said spokesperson Renae Eze in a statement. “This is the biggest vaccination effort we have ever undertaken, and with over 75 vaccination hubs and counting across the state, we are accelerating the vaccination process to reach the most vulnerable among us. We still have a long road ahead of us, and we will continue to work with our federal and local partners to swiftly distribute vaccines to protect the lives and livelihoods of Texans.”
In West Virginia, with a population of 1.8 million, 8.8% of residents have gotten at least one shot, second only to Alaska’s rate of 10%, according to the New York Times analysis.
Unlike Texas, West Virginia declined to participate in a federal program that uses CVS and Walgreens to help vaccinate residents of nursing homes and long-term care facilities. Instead, the state relied on local pharmacies to administer the vaccines.
West Virginia was the first state in the country to complete first doses for long-term care centers before the end of December, according to the Associated Press.
“I think the West Virginia model is really one that we would love for a lot more states to adopt,” John Beckner from the National Community Pharmacists Association told the Associated Press.
The biggest issues facing Texas when it comes to the vaccination rollout is not having enough supply to meet the demand, Anton said. The state’s strategy of allocating doses to hubs and other smaller providers is meant to get people vaccinated as quickly as possible, she said.
“Unfortunately, there isn’t enough vaccine allocated to Texas by the federal government for us to allocate vaccine to every approved provider,” Anton said. “We don’t know how the new administration will change the vaccine distribution process.”
President Joe Biden, who aims to vaccinate 100 million Americans in his first 100 days in office, wants to establish hundreds of mass vaccination sites around the country.
“The way the federal government operated in 2020 was that they wanted the states in the lead and the federal government would provide backup support, and that was a recipe for disaster,” said Hotez of Baylor. “The states were set up to fail, and so I place the blame squarely and point my finger directly at the White House.”
This story was originally published January 22, 2021 at 5:35 PM.
