According to APH Director Stephanie Hayden-Howard, Austin Public Health has provided 18,427 vaccines to the community in Austin and Travis County.
But one thing is for sure, she said during a press conference that APH does not currently have enough doses for everyone.
“We ask that you be patient with us,” she said.
Hayden-Howard said APH received only 1% of the doses needed to vaccinate the community. She said there are 129,438 people in Austin-Travis County alone who are 65 years and older, an age group currently qualifying to be vaccinated.
And while people are in a hurry to sign up for one of these limited doses, APH’s phone lines and other operations related to COVID have been overwhelmed, said Janet Pichette, chief epidemiologist.
“Austin and Travis County have reached a point in our community where we have reached the perfect storm,” she said. “We are in the midst of an increase in all of our COVID-19 response operations.”
Pichette said the city’s facilities for people who need a place to isolate safely to prevent family members from getting sick are close to capacity. The alternative care area at the Austin Convention Center now has 25 patients. APH is also currently seeing an increase in demands for tests, she said.
But things seem to be slowing down, said Dr. Mark Escott, interim health authority for Austin-Travis County, said.
“We have done an excellent job over the past few weeks in flattening the curve,” he said. “The curve is still going flat. We are seeing a slight decrease in our hospitalization numbers and our ICU numbers, so what you are doing is working. ‘
However, the community cannot stop here, he said. People need to keep wearing masks and taking social distance.
“We need to continue to protect and be vigilant so that we can reduce the numbers and give us more time for the availability of vaccine and to get it into the arms of our community,” he said.
Watch the press conference below:
Coronavirus in Austin, Texas: Austin Leaders Answer COVID-19 Questions Amid Vaccine Deployment | KVUE
The state distributed its federal government grants to vaccine providers in Texas. Last week, the Texas Department of Health Services began allocating thousands to large-scale providers called ‘vaccine points.’ APH is one of them. 24,000 vaccines have been awarded in the past two weeks. Smaller suppliers currently receive only a few hundred vaccines per week.
As a public health entity, APH says, the focus is on people who have no health insurance or another provider available. But that doesn’t mean people with medical insurance can’t sign up for the APH waiting list, Escott explained Friday. He said his advice to those eligible for the vaccine is to sign up for any waiting list they can find to increase their chances of a chance.
“As we did with the test, we wanted to remind people that if they have the means to get vaccinated or test somewhere other than Austin Public Health, it helps to discuss vaccine sources for those who have no other options,” he said. he said. “But there are definitely people out there who have insurance, and we’ll report the vaccine to everyone as well as possible.”
The vaccines currently in use in the US require two doses for full protection. Escott said he expects APH to be able to give the second dose in a timely manner to those who received their first dose of APH.
” Part of the challenge we have … is that we do not have a delivery order that says it’s going to come on this date, ” he said. “We trust that the state and federal government will provide what they have been told they will deliver.”
According to government counseling, APH and other vaccine providers prioritize people 65 and older and those with underlying medical conditions who put them at higher risk for COVID-19 complications. Escott said the reason for this is that most are likely to be hospitalized and most likely to die from the virus. Acquiring immunity within the groups will help eliminate the threat to the currently overwhelming hospital systems.
“I think it’s reasonable that by the time period of March, maybe April, when we get through the group that has the greatest risk for hospitalization, that the threat to the overwhelming healthcare system can be largely resolved,” Escott said.
That would not mean the community could relax precautions, he said. People under 65 can still develop complications through COVID and stress hospitals.
“But it can be remedied by masking and spreading until June to give us extra time to get other people vaccinated,” he said. “I therefore expect again that around the time frame from March to April we will start to see a very different picture in terms of the threat to our infrastructure and the threat to our healthcare system.”
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