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Texas Jeff

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  1. From the article: "He says that will mean someone in their 30s with an underlying condition in the priority ZIP code will move ahead of someone in their 80s not in a targeted ZIP code." That is an amazingly bad idea, in my opinion. If the politics gets worse, Abbott needs to change course and just do it by age, statewide. Drop the age as lines get shorter. I get trying to make sure that old folks in all parts of town get the vaccine, especially ahead of healthier folks elsewhere, but this is too much steering.
  2. You know, I don't mind being in a line for the vaccine, or having others in front of me, or letting 65+ go first ... whatever the rules are. But it is crazy that there are different rules and registration for each county. It is crazy that one county gets to make rules for the region, because they effectively control all of the vaccine available. The state is giving vax to the hubs with the promise that the hubs are going to distribute it according to state guidelines. Austin tacks on more rules, gives it to legislators but denies it to people because they have health insurance unless you are willing to lie and say you don't. San Antonio has a different system, Dallas a different system, UT gets vax but evidently can't give it to anyone outside of the system even though I think Dell Med is partially taxpayer funded. It is crazy. The state should have set up hubs with a single registration system and the same set of rules for everyone. I don't mind being in line but it would be nice to know *where* I was in line and nice to have uniform rules set across the state.
  3. Does anyone know if the AZ and J&J vaccines reduce the intensity of COVID, should you get infected after vaccination? I think their test data is showing lower efficacy than the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine. I think I have read that if you get COVID after having the Modera/Pfizer vax, you are likely to have a mild case. I might take the AZ/J&J stuff if offered ... but it would be nice to know that if I did get COVID then I would be at lower risk for a severe case.
  4. There's a bright spot emerging in the Panhandle, let's see if the trends continue. Amarillo is hosting walk-up vax clinics for people in 1A and 1B, no appointments required, just walk up and wait in line. You might be in line for a while... Covid Act Now is showing "better" colors for the Panhandle counties and showing reproductive rates below 1.
  5. Federal allocations have been flat for the last three weeks, varying between 317k and 332k first shots for Texas per week. It's not nothing but it's not growing. A million first shots every three weeks in a state with ~28 million people.
  6. Texas Week 6 is out: https://www.dshs.state.tx.us/news/updates/COVIDVaccineAllocation-Week6.pdf Travis Co is all APH all the time, with a smidge more for UT. Wilco getting 6000 doses at Family Emergency Rooms Cedar Park, about half of Travis's allocation.
  7. Well, that's a fair point that I hadn't considered. Hopefully these centers would not open up a vial until they needed it. I wonder how long it takes to open a vial, thaw it out if needed, mix it up, and get it into arms. Ideally they would waste only a partial vial each day, but some kind of standby list for the centers around closing time might be helpful.
  8. Yeah, I agree. Ideally there would be one place to submit your info and then some kind of green light when it is time to go get your shot, and a choice of locations. It would be nice if you know about what date you would get that green light. You want to have more than one location, to spread people out, but you don't want to have 1000, since you have use up a whole vial once you open it. You could have drivers shuttling vaccine from the central location to the satellite locations as needed. I keep coming back to the early voting model. 30 or so places around town that look mostly the same. You want some set of places to get it, but you all want them working about the same way so that you can allocate resources and track results.
  9. I think one of the mentally stressful parts of this was caused by the "Phase 1B" shift making almost one third of Texans eligible to sign up at the same time. Obviously the state and counties had all summer and fall to think of how to do this and either failed to act or failed to come up with a good plan. But, they seem to be reacting in real time towards a solution. Eventually the line will die down a bit and we'll talk about the next phase. IMHO, it would be nice if they just kept us in 1B but lowered the age limit little by little. So maybe one week it's 63 and over, or those with co-morbidities ... next week it is 61 and over or co-morbidities, and so on. Try to manage it so that once you are eligible you have a pretty good chance of getting a first shot in the next two weeks. People would know the current age limit and have some idea of how fast it is coming down. They would be able to project when they might get it. And it would look like progress was being made as the age limit comes down. Otherwise we are going to argue about who goes next and have these giant scrambles each time a new large group is eligible.
  10. I think anyone can get a vaccine if you can get an appointment. I have seen other states accepting out of state residents. When I signed up for APH they only asked for a name and an email address. That led to a form asking for an address, phone number and other info, but nothing about residency or citizenship.
  11. Yeah, like you said it should be all hands on deck... Texas as a whole has now passed 4% first shot but Travis Co is trailing the state averages.
  12. I don't think APH has the freezers needed for Pfizer. Sometime soon there is going to be more Pfizer supply, because diversions for nursing homes are going to be completed. So, there is a chance for another distribution channel in Austin for somebody with the fancy freezers. UT, I am looking at you...
  13. Armybrat, it's for the entire region ... so you should feel included. APH is receiving most of the vaccine for the entire region, at least this week. They are the "hub" for Central Texas.
  14. I registered at the Austin Public Health site even though I am not 1B. I am not expecting an appointment for months. I thought it was good to just raise my hand and say I would like it, so that they can get some numbers showing where the demand is and be organized if they receive more vaccine. This is something that they could have done months ago but at least it is in place now. I am OK if they somewhat steer the vaccine, for a while, so long as they are sticking to the 1B guidelines and they are trying to find people that live in this area. They should ensure distribution across all areas of the region, all economic conditions, etc. Spread it around. Too much targeting will become unfair and inefficient. Most importantly, they should get the vaccine into willing arms as fast as possible. The bottleneck should be elsewhere.
  15. St Davids had 3225 in stock out of 4450 doses they had received as of a few days ago. They were the only place in town with more than 1000 shots in stock other than maybe the DSHS warehouse. Sounds like maybe they are trying to give it out.
  16. Did they say who was giving it out? Austin Public Health? DSHS? A local hospital? Guys in a white van? I'm surprised that someone can just do a pop-up no announcement everyone included clinic. Only a few Travis Co places have that kind of vax.
  17. Texas has a dashboard up with this information here, check out the "People Vaccinated" tab to see the distribution by age https://tabexternal.dshs.texas.gov/t/THD/views/COVID-19VaccineinTexasDashboard/Summary Texas has currently vaccinated about 720,000 folks with first shots and 83,000 with second shots. That's about three percent of the population over 16. About 1 in 33 people over the age of 16 have received their first shot. It is taking 5-7 days to advance the percentage by one percent. Right now, the biggest tool we have to cut the mortality rate is to wear a mask, wash your hands, stay distant, and just flat out reduce the number of contacts you have with other people. We all have masks, soap and space -- we can all help by just doing those things and simply deciding not to gather when possible. Right now, the impact of those things can be much higher than the impact of the vaccine.
  18. you can read the resolution here online: https://degette.house.gov/sites/degette.house.gov/files/Impeachment Resolution.pdf the accusation is: "Donald John Trump engaged in high Crimes and Misdemeanors by willfully inciting violence against the Government of the United States." The rest of the document mostly describes the lead up to the event and lays out the reasons behind the accusation.
  19. I don't think so. Every dose shipped comes with a promise from Operation Warp Speed of a 2nd dose shipped to the same site either 3 (Pfizer) or 4 (Moderna) weeks later. Right now, according to the federal Department of Health and Human Services, Texas has been allocated 1.8 million "first shot" doses through the end of this week. 1.5 million "first shots" were allocated through the week that just ended and should have arrived at their destinations by now. "Second shots" just started delivery last week, and only for Pfizer. Even if second shots are in the total and zero second shots were used, it does not make up for the balance. There are, of course, data delays between when shots are received and when they are reported as being used. Some of the diff is due to that, I suspect.
  20. Right now I think it's a "last mile" issue. Today, Texas has been allocated 2.0 million doses and has had about 1.56 million doses shipped, but has only put 800,000 doses in arms. It does look like weekly allocations are now trailing injections, so eventually we will run out of doses. But right now the bottleneck is local distribution. That is something that Texas can work on and get right, so that when and if the supply ramps up we have the capability to push it out. If Texas does it right, then the bottleneck will be the manufacturing of the vaccine. If it is, then our local and state governments are set up to push out what they do receive.
  21. Looks like it is in Rusk Co. DeWitt folks need to drive up there and get their vax!
  22. OK vaccine hunters, you have a new tool to play with. Texas now has this map showing all vaccine providers with quantities in stock as of a few days ago: https://tdem.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=3700a84845c5470cb0dc3ddace5c376b You may have to play with the controls on the upper right side to get the data to show up, particularly Facility Type. You should see a bunch of red and blue dots. The red dots are out of vax and the blue dots might have some in stock. Clicking on a dot gives you a website link and a phone number. You can also see when that site was last updated. I'll warn you that it's still really hard to find vax. Most of the links were to places that did not have any kind of sign up sheet. But it's a start. It does tell you who does NOT have the vax so you can stop looking there. Kudos to Texas DSHS for getting this online.
  23. Contact phone numbers and websites for the hubs: https://www.dshs.state.tx.us/coronavirus/immunize/vaccine-hubs.aspx Not all of them are ready to roll, but if you are looking for more info that is where to go...
  24. The idea behind the hubs is that they are supposed to set up public vaccination centers in exchange for receiving large quantities. We will see how that goes. I am willing to give them a chance to attempt that. It seems like Austin Public Health could find city or school sites to set up 2-4 vaccination centers and some central way of registering for an appointment. Even two centers, working 7 days a week, would only be giving 900 shots a day. I saw a site in Hildalgo Co that was in a really bad looking facility that was handling that kind of volume. If they get good at that, they have a pathway to open up more centers as more vax is available. If they can't do that or if it gets too political, well that sucks for Austin's leadership. It is a chance for our local government to shine or fail, for sure.
  25. Texas week 5 is out: https://www.dshs.state.tx.us/news/updates/COVIDVaccineAllocation-Week5.pdf First page shows the "large vaccination hubs" across the state. Austin Public Heath, which had previously received a total of 1000 doses, gets 12,000 this week. Hopefully they are ready...
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