TEXAS, USA — 6 News spoke to Texas Department of State Health Services spokesman Chris Van Deusen about vaccine availability across the state and what people can expect in the next few months.
See his answers below:
Question: The governor has talked about an increase in supply and second doses being on the way. What do we know about that right now?
Van Deusen: "The supply has at least been steady and that’s a good thing.
This week we are getting even more vaccines, over 500,000 doses across Texas and that’s just first doses. We are getting an increase in the amount we get every week and we think that’s going to continue. At least that’s what we are hearing from the federal government.
We got over 125,000 additional doses back from the Federal Long-Term Vaccination Program, this is the program that the feds put together with CVS and Walgreens to vaccinate persons in nursing homes. That’s kind of a one-time thing we do expect we will see at least some increase over the next few weeks, as well and the next really big boost, knocking on wood here, is when Johnson and Johnson’s Janssen unit."
Question: When is the Johnson and Johnson supply going to be available?
Van Deusen: "They have not yet presented their data to the FDA. We are expecting it to be some time soon ... That will be good. We don’t have any insight exactly when that will happen."
Question: Could Johnson and Johnson release their vaccine this month?
Van Deusen: "Yes it could be this month. That’s what we have heard. It's not for sure until we see in black and white."
Question: How many doses is Texas getting right now and how to you expect that to increase?
Van Deusen: "Over the last few weeks, we’ve gotten over 330,000 first doses each week. We got a boost of over 50,000 Moderna doses for this current week that we are in. We expect that is going to continue. Then, there is over another 125,000 or so on top of that, the doses we got back from the federal long term care program.
So for this week, it’s about 520,000 first doses and there will be a couple hundred thousand second doses for people vaccinated a few weeks ago."
Question: For county hubs that are giving this out, if they are getting, for example, 1,500 doses every week for the last four weeks, do they have any guarantee that that is going to keep coming out so they can continue to schedule appointments?
Van Deusen: "So those providers that are designated as hub providers, that’s like the Bell County Health Department, Waco-McLennan County Health Department, that’s part of being a hub provider. As long as they are meeting those requirements -- vaccinating a large population, prioritizing those that are the hardest hit, making sure that they are using all those doses on a week in and week out basis -- then they will continue to get a steady amount of vaccine."
Question: For those hub providers, will they see an increase in allotment in the next couple weeks or about the same amount?
Van Deusen: "What we are expecting now is to keep those steady and if the overall amount of vaccine in the state goes up, we could allocate more to those hub providers but we also want to make sure we reach out to other providers too. We are providing, for example, to federally qualified health centers, rural health clinics, community clinics that serve people underserved by the medical healthcare system."
Question: If you are in a county that has a hub provider, are you expected to go to that hub provider or should you still be checking with your local HEB, pharmacy or clinic?
Van Deusen: The hub providers give you a good opportunity to do that and so we are encouraging people to get on the list with their hub provider if there is one.
If you are in that 1A or 1B population, particularly if you are an older adult, 65 plus or 75 plus, but stay in touch with your healthcare provider, [a] vaccine is going to be coming to those places, it's just not as much as your healthcare provider."
Question: Are there going to be additional, smaller hubs besides those large hubs, in the near future?
Van Deusen: "Yeah, so there are 82 hubs now. We have expanded that number from the first week (when it) was 28 and then it’s grown over the last couple of weeks until we got to 82.
We’ve been able to get those first ones focused on heavily populated urban areas as well as more remote areas that didn’t have options nearby. We’ve been able to expand that to suburban areas as well as rural areas. The number of hubs will be fairly steady but we will be able to continue to provide vaccine to other kinds of providers in other counties.
Question: Do we have any information about phase 1C yet?
Van Deusen: "It’s something I expect the Expert Vaccine Allocation Panel to be talking about over the next several weeks. We are going to be in 1B for quite awhile based on the numbers and the population. That is something they will take their time and deliberate on to see where we are going next."
Question: Is there anything else you would like us to get out to the public?
Van Deusen: "We really appreciate people’s patience, particularly the people who are not in the priority groups and letting us vaccinate those folks first and then standing by. We’ll let you know when it is your turn in line and make sure folks are vaccinated as quickly as possible."