Texas is sending mobile COVID-19 vaccination units to rural areas
Texas is deploying mobile vaccination teams to rural pockets of the state to help administer coronavirus vaccines.
Gov. Greg Abbott announced the pilot program Wednesday as a way to reach underserved areas. The teams of Texas National Guard personnel will head to five counties: DeWitt, Marion, Real, Sherman and Starr.
The teams can begin giving shots as soon as Thursday. The Texas Division of Emergency Management is working with local officials to schedule deployment, according to Abbott’s office.
“The State Mobile Vaccine Pilot Program will help us ramp up vaccination efforts among homebound Texans, Texans 65 years of age or older, and among communities in need,” Abbott said in a statement, vowing to keep developing strategies to increase vaccinations in the state.
Texas is in its seventh week of distributing vaccines. Shots are prioritized for health care workers, those in long term care facilities, people 65 and older and those with medical conditions that make them high risk were they to contract COVID-19.
The Texas Department of State Health Services on Tuesday reported that roughly 1.9 million doses of the vaccine had been administered in the state. More than 3 million doses have been distributed to the state.
The mobile teams come as rural communities, including in North Texas, have waited for vaccines to arrive in recent weeks. Texas has taken a hub approach to distributing shots, with more than 80 sites located across the state.
