Collin County secures over 6K vaccine doses

Collin County announced Wednesday that the Texas Department of State Health Services has committed to sending the county 6,975 COVID-19 vaccine doses in the upcoming week.

The announcement comes one day after a joint letter between Collin County Commissioners and local state senators and representatives sent a letter to John Hellerstedt, commissioner with the DSHS. The letter said Collin County Health Care Services stood ready and able to operate vaccination “mega-sites” and requested that additional vaccine doses be allocated to the county as soon as possible.

“We anticipate that we can vaccinate up to 6,000 people per day starting the week of Jan. 25,” the letter stated.

A Wednesday afternoon social media announcement from the county said Collin County Health Care Services (CCHCS) and local city and school district partners are ready to administer 2,000 doses per day “right now.”

CCHCS will be able to increase to 6,000 doses per day at each location by Jan. 25, the county stated.

In gearing up for receiving more COVID-19 vaccines, the county established a partnership that includes cities, towns, school districts and private sector providers to prepare for a large-scale vaccine deployment. On Monday, the county approved working with Curative Medical Associates Inc. to operate a mass distribution megacenter in the county.

“In all of this strategy, in all of this plan, the one missing piece is we don’t have any doses,” Collin County Judge Chris Hill said during a Monday County Commissioners Court meeting.

Those remarks came one day before neighboring Denton County administered the first round of the 3,500 vaccines it had received for the week after being deemed as a vaccination hub by the state. Collin County had not been on the hub list that was shared by the state Jan. 10.

With the new shipment of vaccines confirmed, Collin County Health Care Services has officially asked for 10,000 doses immediately, 14,000 for the week of Jan. 18 and 42,000 doses for the week of Jan. 25 and each following week, the county stated.

Next week, 2,000 Moderna vaccine doses will go to CCHCS. The McKinney and Allen fire departments will get 2,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine each, and 975 Pfizer vaccine doses will go to an unidentified local hospital.

“CCHCS staff will immediately begin contacting individuals from the vaccine waitlist to schedule appointments for next week,” the county stated. “The vaccine waiting list hosted by Collin County is open to all Texans who are eligible according to the DSHS Phase 1A and Phase 1B definitions.”