More than 20% of Tarrant’s COVID vaccines are going to people outside of the county
The demand for the coronavirus vaccine has been so high someone from Mexico tried to get one in Tarrant County.
A person from Mexico called the Tarrant County Public Health Department asking if he could fly over to receive the vaccine, said Vinny Taneja, the county’s public health director on Tuesday. The person was told not to book a flight and instead to find a vaccination site in his country.
“There’s interest in Tarrant County from all over the place,” Taneja said.
People trying to get a vaccine from another country will be turned away, said Brian Murnahan, the Tarrant County Public Health spokesperson.
About 56,000 vaccines have been administered between the Public Health Department and its partners the Arlington Fire Department and Texas Health Resources, according to the latest county data.
The state has marked all three of these locations as hub providers. Anyone from Texas can receive a vaccine from these locations.
While 78.9% of appointments have gone to Tarrant County residents, data shows that 12.9% of appointments went to people in unspecified counties, 1.9% were from Johnson County, 1.7% were from Dallas County, 1.5% were from Collin County, 1.3% were from Parker County, 0.8% were from Denton County, 0.4% were from Ellis County, 0.4% were from Hood County and 0.1% were from Rockwall County.
The county will also put a greater emphasis on vaccinating people in ZIP codes with the high case rates in the past month. This includes 76177, 76131, 76179, 76155, 76053, 76164, 76182, 76118, 76180 and 76060. The county will allocate between 25% and 50% of its doses to these ZIP codes and the remaining doses will go to the rest of the county.
This is how the county avoided any repercussion from the state. Dallas County had identified priority ZIP codes, but the state stopped the plan because the county wanted to vaccinate people only in those ZIP codes, the Dallas Morning News reported.
“When we start prioritizing these people in these ZIP codes, you’re going to have some unhappy folks saying ‘I registered first’,” Taneja said on Jan. 19.
Tarrant County residents will continue to either be directed to Tarrant County’s vaccination sites at the Hurst Conference Center, Esports Stadium Arlington, the Tarrant County Conference and Recreation Center in Fort Worth or a Texas Health Resources location.
Murnahan said the county will work with the University of North Texas Health Science Center and the University of Texas at Arlington to better identify communities that need the vaccine the most. The county recently agreed to work with UNT officials to ramp up COVID-19 vaccination efforts, especially in minority communities.
This story was originally published January 26, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
