Nearly 17K doses reserved for Montgomery County this week as eligibility expands to Texans age 50 and up

Montgomery County's two vaccination hub sites and three additional health care providers are set to receive nearly 17,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses during the week of March 15 as vaccinations statewide open to all residents age 50 and older.

The overall dose count and number of county providers selected for allocations is lower this week than last, a trend mirrored at the state level and which the Texas Department of State Health Services attributed in part to smaller shipments of the new Johnson & Johnson vaccine and a shift in operations at some of the state's largest vaccination sites.

"The decrease follows a large amount of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine coming to the state. Smaller amounts of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will be available for the next two weeks as production increases," DSHS said in a March 12 statement. "Additionally, the federally-supported sites in Arlington, Dallas and Houston have finished their three-week cycle of first doses and will be administering second doses for the next three weeks."

Additional county providers with vaccine allocations this week include Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital, which had nearly 6,000 doses reserved, and Kelsey-Seybold's clinics in Conroe and Porter each with 100-dose shipments.

Through 14 weeks of Texas' vaccine distribution efforts, more than 200,000 first and second COVID-19 vaccine doses have been allocated to Montgomery County's hub sites and other providers. According to DSHS, over 135,000 of those doses had been administered as of March 16 with 85,656 people receiving at least one dose and 51,339 people fully vaccinated.