Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins berates state for cutting COVID vaccines

The state is penalizing tens of thousands of people waiting for the COVID-19 vaccine after reducing the number of doses it sent to the two largest counties in North Texas, Dallas County Judge Clay said Monday. Jenkins.

Last week, the Texas Department of Health and Human Services announced it would drastically reduce the number of shots sent to Dallas and Tarrant counties, with the federal government set to open sites here which will vaccinate 126,000 people.

Jenkins said the reduction means Texans statewide will have to wait at least three weeks for a chance to be vaccinated in Dallas or Tarrant counties.

This is because shots for North Texas from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for the next three weeks are restricted to the area’s most vulnerable residents in specific neighborhoods. Meanwhile, state-licensed providers, like the Dallas County Department of Health, must vaccinate anyone who meets the state’s eligibility criteria, regardless of where they live.

“North Texas shouldn’t be punished,” Jenkins said, criticizing the state for its move in a virtual meeting with The morning news from Dallas Editorial committee. “There is no reason why our efforts to get more vaccines that don’t disadvantage the state with a single vaccine should cause the state, indeed, to bypass our residents.

A spokesperson for the Texas Department of Health said last week that new federal resources in Dallas and Tarrant counties were allowing the state to send vaccines to other counties that had not received. a fair allocation.

However, the state did not this week reduce the number of shots it sent to Harris County, which includes Houston, where a third FEMA-run site is expected to open this week. The health department said the state’s largest county had not received a good amount of vaccine based on population.

The launch of federal distribution programs this week represents a dramatic vaccine escalation for the state, which has already inoculated more than 3 million people with at least one of two doses. Including plans distributed directly by FEMA, Dallas and Tarrant counties are expected to have a slight increase in the total number of plans. However, this is not the manna of doses expected by the leaders of North Texas.

The state’s decision to reduce the number of doses comes as no surprise. State officials, in the days following the announcement of the federal program, telegraphed that a reduction would be possible.

The state sets the number of doses each county center receives each week. And, Jenkins said, the state health department has already signaled an opening to restore the county allotment. A spokesperson for the department has not confirmed any conversations between Jenkins and the health department, but said no decision on next week’s doses has yet been made.

At one point during Jenkins’ meeting with The news’ editorial board, he suggested without evidence that Gov. Greg Abbott had a role in reducing the shootings.

“This governor is, you know, very involved in the day-to-day running of things,” Jenkins said. “But I have no window to share on the ongoing conversations with the governor and his team about these vaccine allocations.”

A spokesperson for Abbott said it was the Department of Health’s expert panel on vaccine allocation, and not the governor’s office, that decided how many vaccines each supplier received. The panel is made up of a group of 17 doctors, officials and legislators.

Jenkins and Abbott have clashed since the start of the pandemic.

The fight for vaccines comes as the Dallas County Health Department runs out of doses. Shipments of the shots were delayed in the state and across the country following severe winter conditions last week. The Dallas County Department of Health performed about 5,000 booster shots between Sunday and Monday.

“Right now we have no vaccine left,” Jenkins said.

All three FEMA sites are scheduled to open on Wednesday and are by appointment only.

In Dallas, residents of 17 zip codes from across the county will be invited to have their photos taken. The areas were selected based on various factors, including age and the concentration of chronic diseases.

Postal code neighborhoods selected based on federal government criteria include: Forest Meadow at 75243 on the north side of town; to the east, the Club Estates and Casa Ridge Heights sub-developments in Mesquite 75150; in the south, both Joppa and the Cedar Valley campus of Dallas College in 75241; and to the west, the neighborhoods of Plymouth Park and Irving Heights in Irving 75061.

Dallas County has so far identified about 18,000 people who qualify for the vaccine in those zip codes, Jenkins said. On Monday, it was not known how many people had made appointments.

Registering black and Latino residents, those who are older or who do not have internet access has been difficult for the county. Jenkins was scheduled to lead a conference call with city council members and church leaders Monday night to discuss ways to register residents of those neighborhoods.

If the county can’t meet all the appointments with residents in the 17 zip codes, they will expand into other neighborhoods using the same criteria, Jenkins said.

Writer Allie Morris has contributed from Austin.