Dallas (1080 KRLD)- The state opened vaccines for Covid-19 to everyone 16 and up on March 29th. Since then, more than three million shots have gone into arms.
Close to nine million people have gotten at least one dose.
This week Texas is slated to receive about 1.9 million doses. The Texas Department of State Health Services is allocating 796,360 first doses to 468 providers in 116 counties. DSHS is ordering 605,390 second doses for people vaccinated a few weeks ago.
Chris Van Deusen with the Texas Department of State Health Services says the more vaccine they get, the more convenient they can make it for people to get immunized.
"I think that's the shift that's happening now, from the big centralized hub-type providers," said Van Deusen. "Getting it out to more corner pharmacies, people's own doctor's offices, those places where they usually get vaccinated."
This week's total is a little less than the state has gotten in the last few weeks. It's due to a reduction of about 350,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
Van Deusen says they got word from the CDC that "we should be expecting a much lower allocation of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine until the plant in Baltimore that is producing some of the ingredients is authorized to produce those ingredients and put them into vaccines."
15-million doses of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine had to be destroyed because of a mix-up between vaccine ingredients.
