Nearly 17% of Collin County residents age 16 and older have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as of March 26. In Denton County, that number sits at 15%.
A combined estimate of 462,000 people have received at least one dose from vaccination sites and clinics in the two counties, while close to 243,000 are reported as being fully vaccinated. There are close to 1.5 million residents age 16 and older in the Collin and Denton counties, although vaccine appointments are not limited to county residents.
More than 10 million doses have been administered across the state of Texas since manufacturers began shipping vials to the state in December. The state expanded COVID-19 vaccine eligibility to all adults beginning March 29.
Meanwhile, the pace of new coronavirus cases confirmed in Plano has continued to slow.
The seven-day average of daily confirmed cases in the city was roughly 10 cases on March 26. This is the city's lowest point since a peak of roughly 170 average new daily cases Jan. 11.
In the week from March 20-26, there were 102 new cases of COVID-19 in the city from both Denton and Collin counties. During the two weeks prior, there were 185. Health officials have reported new, more quickly spreading variants of COVIID-19 entering Denton and neighboring Dallas counties since February. These strains are likely to have milder symptoms, making those contaminated less likely to get tested and more likely to spread the virus, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said in a statement.
There have been 16,554 cases of COVID-19 confirmed in the city of Plano since officials began data collection in March 2020. In Collin County, there have been 71,620 confirmed cases and 787 deaths. In Denton County 53,054 were confirmed to have had the virus as of March 26, and 718 were confirmed dead.
As of March 25, less than 5% of the hospital beds in Trauma Service Area E, which consists of 19 counties in North Texas including Collin and Denton counties, were occupied by confirmed COVID-19 patients, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services dashboard. This is a decline from the previous week and part of a trend since a peak in early January. In Plano ISD, 1,807 students and 800 employees have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and have since recovered, according to PISD's dashboard, which began reporting data Aug. 12 and was last updated March 26.
Collin County Healthcare Services announced that it would begin offering first come, first serve appointment sign ups every Friday at 10 a.m. on March 12. Denton County Public Health has a waitlist available on its webpage, and has been administering vaccines at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth.
