More than 40% of Collin County residents age 16 and older have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as of April 29, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. In Denton County, that number sits at more than 36%.
The DSHS COVID-19 vaccination dashboard shows a combined estimate of more than 767,000 people in the two counties have received at least one dose from vaccination sites and clinics, while close to 575,000 are reported as being fully vaccinated. DSHS estimates show 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.
Nearly 18 million doses have been administered across Texas since manufacturers began shipping vials to the state in December, according to the DSHS dashboard. Since March 29, all Texas adults are eligible to receive a vaccine for COVID-19. According to DSHS, the state's Expert Vaccine Allocation Panel recommended the shift because they expect vaccine supply to continue increasing.
In Plano, the pace of new confirmed cases of coronavirus has slowed, according to the city's dashboard.
The dashboard shows the seven-day average of daily confirmed cases in the city was roughly 12 cases on April 28. That was a nearly 50% decrease from the seven-day average ending April 21 and a significant drop from the city's peak of roughly 170 average new daily cases Jan. 11.
In the week from April 22-28, the dashboard showed there were 88 new cases of COVID-19 in the city from both Denton and Collin counties. During the week prior, there were 157. There have been 17,161 cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Plano since officials began data collection in March 2020. In Collin County, there have been 73,891 confirmed cases and 818 deaths, according to this DSHS dashboard. In Denton County, 54,648 were confirmed to have had the virus as of April 29, and 745 were confirmed dead.
As of April 28, less than 3% 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 DSHS dashboard. This is a decline from the previous week and part of a trend since a peak in early January. In Plano ISD, 1,967 students and 827 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 April 28.
Collin County Health Care Services announced that it would begin offering first-come, first-served appointment signups 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.
