HOUSTON (Reuters) – Texas will allocate about half of the latest COVID-19 vaccine supplies to just 28 health care centers, officials said Sunday, with a view to accelerating distribution amid rising infections and hospitalizations.
Distribution efforts in the second most populous state in the U.S. have been short, with people having to wait for hours, online registration sites can’t keep up, or vaccination locations have suddenly changed since cause of overwhelming demand.
The state’s positivity rate, or the percentage of cases that tested positive, was 19.2% on Saturday, up nearly 6 percentage points in the past four weeks. The new infections have increased by almost 19,000 and more than 13,000 people have been hospitalized, up 4,000 in the last four weeks.
The concentration of deliveries will simplify registrations and provide more photos to eligible residents, the state said in a press release. Primary allocations are based on estimates of the number of people who could serve each location. Officials from the State Department of Health Services were not available to comment.
Of the 310,000 doses expected this week in Texas, approximately 159,000 will be delivered to just 28 locations. Smaller sites will share 38,300 doses, and nursing homes and long-term care institutions will receive 121,875, the state said.
Reporting by Gary McWilliams; Montage by Peter Cooney