Texans age 16 and up became eligible to receive a vaccine March 29, with people ages 16-17 only allowed to receive Pfizer vaccine. APH has yet to open its supply to all eligible residents, however, and has said it will continue to prioritize vaccinations “by age and risk for severe disease” as it gradually expands access to the general public.
“APH will notify the public again when appointment scheduling expands beyond this group,” APH said in a statement.
The change comes after thousands of APH appointments remained unfilled during an April 1 registration window. Those unfilled appointments, APH said, were primarily for slots April 6 and were set to be offered to vaccine seekers again April 5, the first evening that people ages 40-49 have been admitted. The public provider continues to open its registration portal on Monday evenings beginning at 6 p.m. and also offered an advance window the morning of April 5 to high-priority registrants, including medical workers, teachers, seniors and people with high-risk medical conditions.
Scheduling is closed. APH currently has 258K accounts eligible for the vaccine in 1A, 1B, 1C, education & childcare staff. To better serve these at risk communities, we will be doing further outreach to these accounts to fill appointments. Appointments will reopen Monday (4/5).
— Austin Public Health (@AusPublicHealth) April 2, 2021
This week, APH is set to receive 12,000 more Moderna doses as well as 1,000 Johnson & Johnson shots. The Johnson & Johnson doses are bound for direct outreach to vulnerable community members through APH’s mobile vaccination program and collaborations with community partner organizations, a representative from APH told Community Impact Newspaper. Only Moderna doses will be available at the entity’s mass vaccination events this week.
On a statewide level, the Texas Department of State Health Services issued its largest allocation of COVID-19 vaccine doses yet during the week of April 5, shipping more than 2.5 million first-round doses across the state. Some 152,070 of those doses are headed to Travis County, most of which are Johnson & Johnson doses.
While 152,000 Johnson & Johnson doses will be shipped to Travis County providers this week, 100,000 are earmarked for the DSHS Central Pharmacy Warehouse and will be used in statewide vaccination efforts, such as the Save Our Seniors initiative. Another 1,100 are headed to the Texas Department of Public Safety and will be similarly employed. Some 22,900 Johnson & Johnson doses are headed to more than 100 Travis County vaccine providers this week, including pharmacies, such as Walgreens, H-E-B and Randalls.
While most providers will receive small allocations between 100 and 500 doses, Ascension Seton Medical Center is set to get 11,700 Pfizer shots, the second-highest allocation behind APH.
See the full list of Texas vaccine allocations for the week of April 5 here.
