Vaccine remains limited

Texas will receive 333,650 first doses of COVID-19 vaccine for the week of Jan. 18. The Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) has instructed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to ship those doses to 260 providers across Texas. That includes 79 hub providers that will focus on large community vaccination efforts and 181 additional providers as Texas vaccinates health care workers, residents of long-term care facilities, people 65 and older and those with medical conditions that put them at greater risk of hospitalization and death from COVID-19.

In the past week, Texas became the first state to administer one million doses of vaccine, and vaccine has been administered to residents of all 254 counties. In addition to the first doses mentioned above, the state is ordering about 500,000 doses intended as the second dose for people first vaccinated a few weeks ago.

Vaccine remains limited based on the capacity of the manufacturers to produce it, so it will take time for Texas to receive enough vaccine for all the people in the priority populations who want to be vaccinated. The supply is expected to increase in the coming months, and additional vaccines are in clinical trials and may be authorized by the Food and Drug Administration.

DSHS said in a tweet Friday, Jan. 15, that the pandemic has never been worse in Texas, and it has never been easier to catch COVID-19 in the state. The department is “greatly concerned” about hospital capacity and stressed that “ICUs across Texas cannot take much more.”

The Joint Operations Center for Bowie and Cass counties announced earlier this month, that bars must close, and restaurants operate at 50 percent capacity due to the area exceeding the 15 percent threshold of capacity in area hospitals.

Coronavirus patients now comprise more than 21 percent of hospital capacity in the region.

Officials within Trauma Service Area F were notified Jan. 2, by Dr. John Hellerstedt, Commissioner of Texas Department of State Health Services, that COVID-19 hospitalizations in Trauma Service Area F (TSA) have exceeded 15 percent of capacity for at least seven consecutive days.

Trauma Service Area F includes Bowie, Cass, Delta, Hopkins, Lamar, Morris, Red River and Titus counties.

According to Executive Order GA-32 signed by Texas Governor Greg Abbott in October, due to COVID-19 hospitalizations exceeding 15 percent for at least seven days, elective procedures must stop, bars will close, and restaurants will operate at 50 percent capacity until COVID-19 hospitalizations remain under 15% capacity for seven consecutive days.

GA-32 allows counties within the TSA with high hospitalizations to choose to operate at 75 percent capacity if the county has fewer than 30 cases reported over the last 14 days and the county judge submits an attestation to DSHS.

As of Monday, Jan. 18, DSHS reports the following case information by county:

Cass County has 999 confirmed cases, 488 probable cases, 79 active cases with 58 fatalities and 1,350 recovered. Bowie County has 3,532 confirmed cases, 1,297 probable cases, 875 active cases with 138 fatalities and 3,816 recovered.

Marion County has 282 confirmed cases, 111 probable cases, 74 active cases with 20 fatalities and 299 recovered.

Morris County has 461 confirmed cases, 204 probable cases, 80 active cases with 15 fatalities and 570 recovered.

Editor’s note: We reported in our paper that Genesis PrimeCare has the COVID-19 vaccine but it hasn’t arrived just yet.

In lieu of dropping by Genesis PrimeCare or calling please stay tuned to our Facebook page and newspaper for regular updates regarding the COVID-19 vaccine and its availability.