Collin County's COVID-19 vaccine hub at John Clark Stadium in Plano will resume vaccinating new patients today after staffers spent Friday and Monday dealing with patients who were turned away on Thursday. The site was shut down early on Thursday after the company operating the location over-booked. They had expected some people with appointments to be "no-shows", but the percentage of people keeping their appointments was higher than expected.
The site should be able to administer 1,200 doses today. Collin County officials say the line normally moves quickly in the afternoon, but can be slow in the morning because of the number of people showing up several hours ahead of their scheduled appointment time.
"First thing in the morning causes people to come and get their early to get in line, and it takes them a while to get that first curve over with," said Collin County Administrator Bill Bilyeu. "Once they caught up with that morning surge, it was a very short line to move through."
The company operating the vaccination site will work with patients to show up just before their scheduled appointment. "Curative will start turning people away to come back at their scheduled time," Bilyeu said.
The site could dispense up to 1,800 doses on Wednesday and Thursday, However, officials will be monitoring weather conditions on those days. The DFW area will receive a cold front that could include drizzle or freezing rain, and that could impact operations at the outdoor vaccination hub.
Collin County officials also want to temporarily pause sign-ups on the county's vaccination waiting list. More than 270,000 people have signed up so far, but Collin County is only getting about 10,000 vaccine doses per week.
"We'll continue to work through the list as quickly as we can, it would simply be a temporary suspension of the list while we make some progress," said Collin County Judge Chris Hill.
Other members of the Commissioners Court noted on Monday that getting through all of the people currently on the waiting list will likely take several months." It will take us six to ten months to get through this list if we continue to get the same amount of doses," said Commissioner Cheryl Williams.
"Even if doubled and we got 20,000 a week," said Commissioner Darrell Hale, "we're still looking at three months at the earliest to hit most of the people on the wait list."
Commissioners intend to pause new sign-ups to address the existing backlog. They plan to resume adding new names to the list as more patients are vaccinated, the County's supply of vaccines increases, and as vaccines become available at more locations such as pharmacies and medical clinics.
"We have no intention to stop vaccinations or end the services we're providing, we just want this to be a good service to people," County Judge Chris Hill said.
