State Vaccination Efforts Resume After Winter Storm Shutdown

CONROE, TX – After being down for an entire week, vaccination clinics are reopening their doors to stunning lines of eager recipients as vaccine hubs begin efforts to make up losses and get back on schedule.

At the Montgomery County Fairgrounds, some waited as long as 90 minutes in a 3-mile line to receive a second-dose of the vaccine from the Lone Star Family Health Center hub. It’s a marker of the massive effort to get vaccine distribution back on track.

During Commissioners Court on Tuesday, Executive Director of Homeland Security and Emergency Management Jason Millsaps announced the two vaccine hubs run by Lone Star Family Health and CHI St. Luke’s would work to distribute 12,000 doses this week. Both hubs have an accumulation of doses from last week’s and this week’s allocation meant for first and second doses after being put on hold due to the winter storm.

The effort shouldn’t be a problem, as Montgomery County started averaging above 10,000 doses administered weekly before the storm. The first week of February is the highest distribution week, with Montgomery County administering 18,364 total doses.

Across the state, providers big and small are facing the same challenges according to DSHS Assistant Commissioner Imelda Garcia, who forecasted it could take another week or two to fully distribute the 1.4 million doses on hand in the state.

The winter storm may have shut down administration and distribution of the vaccine, but power outages threatened the supply. Several facilities, such as Rice University, had to open emergency distribution measures after storage facilities containing the vaccine shut down. Both Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines have to be stored in freezing temperatures under controlled environments.

Garcia advised roughly 1,000 doses have been reported as lost during the storm, and that number is projected to increase as more providers return to facilities and take stock of any damages.

Despite delays during the past week, Texas has administered over 4.5 million doses of vaccine, with 1.4 million Texans now fully vaccinated as the percentage of the vulnerable population covered under Phase 1A and 1B grows. However, there are still no plans regarding when or how a Phase 1C or Phase 2 would begin rollout.