All Texans 50 and older will be eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine starting Monday, expanding the pool of possible recipients to nearly half of the state’s population.
Now the question is how to find a shot. So far, 4.7 million Texans have received at least one dose of the vaccine, a 15.8 percent vaccination rate that is one of the worst in the nation.
State officials say they are going as fast as they can. They have complained the federal government is not sending enough vaccine because it is using old population data to calculate the Texas share.
More than half of the Texans over 65 have received at least their first dose, a milestone the state reached last week.
Texas is now vaccinating members of priority groups 1A and 1B — a subset of more than 10 million people that includes health care workers, Texans 65 and older, and anyone over age 15 who has a comorbidity.
Last week, officials made the state’s 1.3 million teachers and child care employees eligible for a dose, a victory for educators who argued they deserve earlier access because of their on-the-job exposure to students. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services had directed all states to make the change.
Those 50 and older will be included in priority group 1C, which will expand eligibility to an estimated 12 to 14 million people. More than 93 percent of Texans who have died from the virus have been over 49 years old.
“We’ve seen a remarkable decrease in the number of hospitalizations and deaths since people 65 and older started becoming fully vaccinated in January,” Imelda Garcia, the chair of the state’s Expert Vaccine Allocation Panel, said Wednesday. “Expanding to ages 50 to 64 will continue the state’s priorities of protecting those at the greatest risk of severe outcomes and preserving the state’s health care system.”
There are an estimated 5 million Texans between the ages of 50 and 64, a group that has accounted for more than 20 percent of the state’s fatalities. More than 1 million Texans between those ages have already received at least one dose of the vaccine, health officials said.
Still, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that essential workers — including police officers, firefighters, grocery store employees, food service workers and journalists — be prioritized for the vaccine ahead of individuals over 50.
This week, Texas received more than 1 million first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, a record number mostly attributable to the addition of 240,000 units of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine. But next week, Texas won’t receive any doses of that vaccine due to a federal shortage, Garcia said.
She expects the weekly supply to rise again at the end of the month.
Three vaccines have been approved for distribution in the United States. Two of them, made by Pfizer and Moderna, require two shots — administered about a month apart — for full immunization. The third is the single-shot vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson.
The 1C announcement came on the same day that Texas lifted its COVID restrictions, including the mask order Gov. Greg Abbott implemented last July to slow the spread of the virus. Abbott has cited the rapid increase in vaccinations as part of the reason for removing the state mandates.
“Most seniors have already received a shot,” the governor tweeted Wednesday. “Seniors who have not received a shot & want one will still be prioritized. Always voluntary.”
Local officials lauded the announcement as another step toward normalcy.
“I think it’s a good thing,” said Stephen Williams, the director of the Houston Health Department. “With the vaccine, we can certainly see the light at the end of the tunnel, but we can’t let our guard down.”
While the federal government continues to increase supply sent to state and local vaccine providers, cities still need additional doses to maintain the flow of vaccines going into the communities at highest risk for the virus, he said.
Officials have launched a series of new initiatives in recent weeks to reach those vulnerable groups, including two mobile vaccination programs for homebound seniors and rural Texans. The state has also partnered with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to open three vaccine mega-sites in the Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth areas, aiming to inoculate underserved communities.
Black and Hispanic Texans have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, but have also received the vaccine at lower rates than white people.
Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo welcomed the move into Phase 1C.
“There is hope on the horizon, and little by little, we’ll continue getting through our population,” Hidalgo said. “This is the time to continue wearing our masks, continue avoiding crowds, and getting the vaccine as soon as it becomes available to us.”
County officials will continue to push state and federal partners for more vaccines, she said. In Harris County, 1.1 million doses have been administered, and more than 351,000 people have been fully vaccinated, according to Hearst Newspapers data.
The challenge, Hidalgo said, is not having enough doses to hand out to everyone on the wait lists.
“We knew it would be well into the summer until we hit most of our population. That’s going to require continued patience and perseverance, and we ask the community to continue to stick with us on this,” she said.
In Galveston, the county health department works in conjunction with the University of Texas Medical Branch on mass vaccination efforts.
“What I think DSHS is doing is taking the temperature around the state, and particularly for places that have wait lists like us, and finding that we’re getting the people we’re targeting and deciding it’s time to move on,” said Dr. Philip Keiser, a professor of medicine at UTMB and the local health authority for Galveston County. “We have a lot of people on our wait list between 50 and 64, and don’t have that many people over 75. We have some over 65, but not many. It’s not enough to continue to vaccinate people at the same rate.”
Staff writer Jeremy Wallace contributed reporting.
cayla.harris@express-news.net
julie.garcia@chron.com
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