As of Thursday April 8, Imelda Garcia, the Associate Commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) said the state had administered at least one dose of the COVID vaccine to just over 13.3 million Texans.
During her weekly news conference Garcia further explained the total breakdown. “Overall we have 8.6 who have gotten at least one dose, nearly 4 in 10 of eligible Texans,” said Garcia. “More than 5 million people are now fully vaccinated, more than 1 out of every 5 eligible Texans.”
Garcia says the big jump in vaccinations over the past couple weeks is the result of the DSHS expansion of eligibility. “Since we’ve open vaccinations to everyone 16 years old and older at the beginning of last week we’ve had 2.6 million doses that have been reported, and that’s more than 10% of all eligible Texans who have gotten a shot in the last 10 days.”
The expansion to phase 2 by DSHS has also resulted in fewer providers reporting lower than usual demand for the vaccine. “Obviously from us going from 10 million doses to 13.3 million doses within a matter of 10 days tells me that there is still quite a demand and that we have a great deal of our population that still wants it.”
The expected number of doses of the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine to be sent by the Centers for Disease Control to Texas are expected to decline.
Garcia said next week the State will receive just 130,000 doses. This is down from the 500,000 shots sent last week. “We have heard from our federal partners that Johnson & Johnson will be delivering lower amounts of doses each week until the plant in Baltimore that manufactures the ingredients is authorized by the FDA.”
