Dallas Political Battles Further Complicate Fair Vaccine Distribution
Local governments are responsible for getting vaccines in people s arms. It isn t going smoothly because they don t all agree on the best path forward.
By Matt Goodman
Published in
FrontBurner
January 21, 2021
3:53 pm
If you live in Dallas and hope to get the COVID-19 vaccine soon, good luck. Bureaucracy and infighting are in far greater supply.
The mayor is at odds with the county judge and members of the City Council over how to register residents for vaccinations. The state of Texas has threatened the County Commissioners Court with pulling the Fair Park mega center’s vaccine supply, which triggered an emergency meeting to kill an order. And members of the City Council allege the mayor is making it harder to get people living in poor neighborhoods signed up for appointments. It has been a mess.
Texas shows 450 new COVID-19 deaths as state toll nears 33,000
Published
(NIAID-RML)
AUSTIN, Texas - Texas state health officials reported 450 new COVID-19 deaths on Wednesday as fatalities rapidly mount after a recent surge in hospitalizations.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has touted expanded vaccination efforts, but the rising death toll 2,200 over the past seven days and high numbers of seriously ill patients prompted a social media warning from state health officials that hospitals are struggling. Texas must avoid an additional surge in cases. Hospitals can’t take much more. Fatalities are still increasing, the Department of State Health Services tweeted on its official account.
Dallas County Health and Human Services
The vaccine usage map above (darker blue = more the vaccines) shows results from the first few days of the mega center, when it allowed for anyone over 75 to show up, no appointment needed. North Dallas folks hopped into their cars and set their nav systems to Fair Park Gate 5.
As County Judge Clay Jenkins points out, with the first-come-first-serve model, despite the fact that the mega center is placed south of Interstate 30, those with the fastest cars, internet connections and resources made their way to center quickest.
But, vaccinating the Black communities of south Dallas is a complicated issue.
There was some heated finger pointing of blame at tonight s meeting. All of a sudden the judge wrote a letter to the state objecting to it and then all of a sudden the state sends this veiled threat, Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price said in an interview after the meeting. Commissioner Koch with all due respect rather than you trying to guess what s okay with the state you got us in the situation we are in tonight, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said during the meeting. Your dealings with the state up to this point has been quite disingenuous, Dallas County Commissioner J.J. Koch said to Judge Jenkins during the meeting. You made clear to the state that we were shutting people out entirely that weren t in those ZIP codes and that was not the case.
The COVID-19 UK variant, SARS-CoV-2 B.1.1.7, has been found in Dallas. The first case in Texas of the mutated virus first identified in the United Kingdom was reported in Harris County earlier this month.
“This is now the third identified case in Texas, and we can assume there are more cases in our community due to the nature of this variant and how quickly it spreads,” Dr. Philip Huang, Dallas County Health and Human Services director, said in a press release.
The individual identified as having been infected by the B.1.1.7 variant is a Dallas man in his 20s with no recent history of travel outside the U.S. He is in stable condition, isolated, and DCHHS epidemiologists are conducting an investigation to identify and notify others who came in close contact with him. In a press release, DCHHS said it found the infection was caused by the variant through the results of genetic sequencing.