Texas to receive more than 1 million first doses of COVID-19 vaccine for this week

More than 1 million first doses of COVID-19 vaccine will be shipped to providers across Texas next week. The Texas Department of State Health Services is allocating 818,410 doses to 779 providers in 202 counties.

More than 200,000 additional first doses are expected to be available to pharmacy locations and federally-qualified health centers directly from the federal government.

Texas has now administered more than 10 million doses, an increase of 1.2 million in the last week. More than 6.8 million people have received at least one dose, and almost 3.5 million are fully vaccinated.

Among Texas seniors, more than six in 10 have received at least one dose, and four in 10 are now fully vaccinated. More than 30 percent of all Texans at least 16 years old have gotten at least one dose.

Beginning Monday, all Texans ages 16 and older will be eligible to receive a vaccine. Vaccination has helped drive down the number of new cases and people hospitalized with COVID-19 to their lowest level since October.

However, with hundreds of variant cases identified in Texas that have the potential to spread more quickly and cause more serious diseases, vaccination remains critically important.

The available vaccines have proven effective against the variant strains, so the more people vaccinated, the easier it will be to keep the variants under control and prevent new ones from emerging.

In addition to the first doses mentioned above, the state is ordering 587,950 doses intended as the second dose for people first vaccinated a few weeks ago.

DSHS automatically orders second doses to arrive at providers in the week they can begin to be administered, so they will be available when needed. People should be able to return to the same provider to receive their second dose within six weeks of getting the first.

People can find more information on the COVID-19 vaccine at dshs.texas.gov/covidvaccine.

Helpful links

• Weekly vaccine allocations, including the full list for the week of March 29
• Vaccination hub providers with contact information
• DSHS/TDEM map of vaccine providers
• Texas Vaccine Data
• Texas COVID-19 Vaccine Doses Wasted Report