The state of Texas is expanding its number of coronavirus vaccine hubs from 28 to 79, including 15 in North Texas.
The Texas Department of State Health Services said it directed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to ship large quantities of the first doses of the vaccine to the 79 providers.
The five hubs in Dallas County will be Baylor University Medical Center, Dallas County Health and Human Services, Parkland Hospital, UT Southwestern Medical Center and the city of Garland Health Department, according to DSHS.
Garland City Council Member Deborah Morris sent an open letter to Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins and the president of Parkland Hospital, expressing disappointed about how vaccines had been distributed thus far in Dallas County.
"I understand the noble intention of drawing in more residents from underserved areas, but fail to understand either the secrecy involved or the rationale behind defining Dallas County's underserved population as residing solely in South Dallas," Morris wrote. "My district includes some of the oldest and most disadvantaged neighborhoods in Garland, including many homes without internet access."
After it did not have a vaccine hub last week, Collin County will have four: Collin County Health Care Services, Baylor Scott & White Medical Center Plano and the Allen and McKinney fire departments.
Tarrant County will have three vaccine hubs: the Arlington Fire Department, Tarrant County Public Health and Texas Health Medical Support.
Denton County Public Health will be the sole hub in Denton County, while Fannin and Parker counties will each establish their first hubs. The Parker County Hospital District and TMC Bonham Hospital will each receive large quantities of the vaccine.
The number of doses each hub gets will be based on the number of people each provider estimated it could vaccinate in a week, according to Texas DSHS.
In addition to the hubs, DSHS will distribute doses of the vaccine to 181 other hospitals, doctors' offices and long-term care facilities around Texas. In total, 333,650 COVID-19 vaccine doses will be shipped to Texas.
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.
Last week, Texas became the first state to vaccinate 1 million residents and the vaccine has been administered in all 254 counties, according to DSHS.
The vaccines distributed this week include those manufactured by both Pfizer and Moderna.
Because of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, many government agencies will remain closed on Monday.
A spokesperson for Dallas County said they discussed keeping the Fair Park vaccination site open since many people are off on Monday. Ultimately, they decided to remain closed because they only have 6,000 vaccinations left for the week and believe they can administer all of them without having to pull workers in on the holiday.
To learn more about getting vaccinated in Collin, Dallas, Denton and Tarrant counties, click here.
Find the list of providers receiving shipments of the vaccine below or click here.
NBC 5's Sophia Beausoleil contributed to this report.
