Six North Texas providers are among 28 "hubs" charged with large-scale community COVID-19 vaccination efforts as the state works to inoculate health care workers, those over 65 years old and people with preexisting conditions.
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 28 providers.
The hubs in North Texas include Dallas County Health and Human Services, Parkland Hospital, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Denton County Public Health, Tarrant County Public Health and Texas Health Resources in Fort Worth.
The remaining 22 hubs are spread among Amarillo, Austin, College Station, Corpus Christi, Eagle Pass, Edinburg, El Paso, Houston, Laredo, Lubbock, San Antonio, San Benito, Temple, Tyler and Waco.
The state will distribute 158,825 first doses of the vaccine to the 28 hubs. 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 38,300 doses of the vaccine to dozens of hospitals, doctors' offices and long-term care facilities around Texas.
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Texas also reserved 121,875 doses of the vaccine for the federal Pharmacy Partnership for Long-Term Care program, which focuses on vaccinating residents of long-term care facilities.
The vaccines distributed this week include those manufactured by both Pfizer and Moderna.
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.
UT-Southwestern Medical Center was placed on the list as one of the 28 locations. However, its registration website provided by the state leads users to a page that says the hospital is still working on a plan to register people in group 1B, who haven't previously been a patient.
A statement from UT Southwestern Medical Center reads in part:
"UT Southwestern is working quickly on updated plans for distribution of COVID-19 vaccines in light of the state’s announcement regarding centralized vaccination hubs…We are developing a registration process for individuals who are not currently UTSW patients and will provide frequent updates on our COVID-19 Vaccination webpage.”
For Parkland, also listed as a hub, the state provides a link that requires users to first sign up for what’s called a “mychart” account. Approval of the account could take a week, and page does not provide a direct option to sign up for the vaccine.
Texas Health Resource, also on the hub list, will open four clinics and vaccinate people by pulling from the county waitlist.
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Researchers from Johns Hopkins University say more than 30,000 people in Texas have died due to COVID-19, the second-highest in the country.
Johns Hopkins says that over the past two weeks, the rolling average number of daily new cases in Texas has increased by 9,363.7, an increase of 76.9%.
After steadily rising over the last week, hospitalizations in Texas fell by 824 on Sunday to 13,111.
For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms that clear up within weeks. But for others, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, the virus can cause severe illness and be fatal.
Coronavirus Cases in Texas
Locations on the map are approximate county locations and are not intended to identify where any infected people live.
Case data was pulled from a variety of sources including county health departments and the Texas Department of State Health Services.
