Medical City Plano is expected to receive 2,925 of those vaccines, according to data from the Texas Department of State Health Services.
The Plano location for Medical City Healthcare is one of 110 hospitals across Texas to which vaccines have been allocated for front-line health care workers. A total of 49,725 vaccines will be shipped to North Texas during Week One of the allotment, according to data from the Texas Department of State Health Services.
Medical City Healthcare began administering the vaccine Dec. 17 and is implementing a plan to administer the vaccine on a more wide-spread basis, according to the release. Prioritized staff signed up in advance to receive the vaccine and COVID-19 patient caregivers and other frontline support are the first to receive the vaccine.
In a previous update, Medical City Healthcare announced that while health care workers will be the first to receive the vaccines, they are not required to be vaccinated.
All Medical City Healthcare facilities will receive vaccines, and more shipments are expected from the state weekly, the healthcare system shared in the release.
DSHS estimates that North Texas, which is part of Public Health Regions 2 and 3, has 1,447,014 vulnerable adults, including nursing home residents and those over age 65 as well as front-line workers, which includes health care personnel, EMS and acute care hospital employees. The distributed vaccine was developed by Pfizer and was given emergency use authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Dec. 11. The vaccine is authorized for individuals age 16 and older.
Four sites across the state received a total of 19,500 doses Dec. 14. Another 19 sites in Texas were expected to receive 75,075 doses Dec. 15.
The allocation of vaccine doses was given to hospital facilities that indicated they will vaccinate at least 975 front-line healthcare workers, the same number as the the minimum dose order for the Pfizer vaccine, according to DSHS.
The first distribution of vaccines across the state comes as COVID-19 cases continue to increase ahead of the holidays. On Dec. 15, there were 122 new cases reported in Plano in Collin and Denton counties, bringing the total number of cases in the city since the start of the pandemic to 7,903.
Collin and Denton counties, which are part of Trauma Service Region E, have had a hospital capacity rate above 15% for seven consecutive days, which means that more than 15% of hospital beds were occupied by COVID-19 patients during that time. This led all bars to shut down and all restaurants and retail to go back down to 50% capacity.
Reporter Sandra Sadek contributed to this story.
Editor's note: This article has been updated with information from a Dec. 17 Medical City Healthcare release.
