Texas to make vaccines available to all adults on Monday

HOUSTON – Texas was set on Monday to begin making COVID-19 vaccines available to anyone who wants one.

Texas will become the most populous U.S. state to extend COVID-19 vaccine eligibility to all adults. The state has nearly 30 million inhabitants.

This will come more than a month before President Joe Biden’s goal of opening vaccine eligibility to everyone by May 1.

In Texas, people between the ages of 16 and 17 will also be able to get vaccinated as of Monday. But the Texas Department of State Health Services said only the Pfizer vaccine was approved for people in this age group.

Alaska was the first state to open vaccine eligibility to all adults.

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Texas has one of the slowest vaccination rates in the country. About 12% of the state’s population had been fully vaccinated by Saturday and about 24% had received at least one dose, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control. By comparison, neighboring New Mexico has fully immunized over 21% of its population and administered at least one dose to 36% of its residents. More than 10 million coronavirus vaccines have been given in Texas, according to state health officials.

Texas reported 2,285 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, along with 63 additional deaths. New cases continued to decline in the state. Over the past two weeks, the mobile average number of daily new cases in Texas has declined by 675.9, a drop of 14.8%, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.