COVID-19 Update

Texas will receive 401,750 first doses of COVID-19 vaccine from the federal government for the week of Feb. 8. The Texas Department of State Health Services has instructed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to ship those doses to 344 providers in 166 counties across Texas.

The increase is due to a 30 percent increase in the number of Moderna doses allocated to the state and a one-time return of 126,750 doses from the federal Pharmacy Partnership for Long-Term Care Program.

DSHS is allocating the doses from the long-term care program to providers in counties where allocations have been significantly less than their share of the population.

Christus St. Michael Health in Texarkana stands to receive 2000 doses of the Moderna vaccine the week of Feb. 8, the ninth week of the vaccine’s rollout.

Providers are required to self-report the reason why any vaccine doses that they received were unable to be used to vaccinate a person. The number of doses reported to have been discarded in Texas is 0.05% of the doses shipped to providers.

Reasons vaccine might not be used include inadequate storage temperature, mechanical failure, broken vials and syringes and spoiled vaccine—vaccine that couldn’t be used within the required timeframe.

DSHS does outreach to providers reporting discarded doses to ensure that they follow proper storage and handling procedures and to allow them to correct any data entry errors.

Christus St. Michael of Atlanta reports five and Genesis PrimeCare of Atlanta reports two on the latest wasted report.

A cumulative report will be posted weekly.

As of Monday, Feb. 8, the following information is reported by DSHS: