Dec 2, 2020 | Dallas Morning News

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Texas will receive an initial 1.4 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines later this month, Gov. Greg Abbott announced Wednesday.

 

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made an allotment of 1.4 million doses for Texas for the month of December, Abbott announced. Approximately 224,000 doses should arrive the week of Dec. 14 and are expected to go mostly to hospitals, so they can vaccinate front-line health care professionals and other hospital workers who have contact with hospital patients.

 

Bigger shipments are expected to follow in the week of Dec. 21, assuming a second vaccine manufacturer obtains federal emergency authorization by then.

 

And increased allotments are expected in January and the following months, Abbott said in a written statement.

 

“The state of Texas is already prepared for the arrival of a COVID-19 vaccine, and will swiftly distribute these vaccines to Texans who voluntarily choose to be immunized,” he said. “As we await the first shipment of these vaccines, we will work with communities to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.”

 

The 1.4 million doses would be the first of two shots for 1.4 million Texans, with vaccine for the second round of shots for the initial recipients arriving in January, according to Department of State Health Services spokesman Chris Van Deusen.

 

Last week, a group advising state health commissioner John Hellerstedt identified about 1.6 million health care workers who will be first to receive COVID-19 vaccine.

 

Hence, the initial allotment from the CDC would be enough to cover nearly 88% of the hospital, nursing home, EMS, home health, outpatient care and community pharmacy workers who fit the Expert Vaccine Allocation Panel’s definition of health care worker. So do school nurses and people who work for health departments and other entities that have agreed to receive and administer the COVID-19 vaccine.

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