News Room

Don’t expect a jump in COVID-19 vaccination rates this week, as Houston’s hospitals and public health sites shut down their operations due to winter weather and slick, icy roads. Federal distributors postponed the delivery of more than 407,000 first doses of COVID-19 vaccines and 333,000 second doses to Texas due to the Arctic vortex that engulfed much of the country in snow, ice and freezing temperatures over Presidents Day weekend. At earliest, vaccine shipments will arrive on Wednesday and deliveries to vaccination sites around the state will depend on local conditions, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.

We’ve been getting a lot of Good Questions about the vaccine. This question comes from Becky: “When the vaccine first came out, people with underlying issues were in Group 1b, now we are in Group 4. Why did that change and do we have an estimated timeframe as to when we will get to get them?” That timeline did change. Last month, North Carolina officials announced that the rollout groups would change. They said it was for the sake of simplicity. That meant expanding the vaccine to anyone age 65 and up. But also, reorganizing the rollout groups. The change bumped people with underlying issues down to Group 4.

The state has said it’s trying to align with the CDC guidance.

Since December, about 31 million doses of Covid vaccines have been administered in the US. President Biden has committed to distributing 150 million more doses within his first 100 days in office, but new cases continue to mount. January was the deadliest month of the pandemic so far, as scientists say two new, potentially more deadly strains of the virus emerged. As states move to vaccinate people as quickly as they can, early data suggests stark racial disparities in who is getting the vaccine. Coronavirus ravaged low-income, Black, Latinx, and indigenous communities throughout 2020, but in many states, vaccines are going to wealthier, white patients.

Across the Midwest, the rollout of COVID vaccines has been spotty. Lots of people are having a trouble with online signups. And vaccine demand far exceeds supply. That’s made the process challenging, especially in rural areas. For years, the Girls State Training School in central Iowa has sat mostly empty. But on this day, the main building is buzzing as a local vaccination clinic opens. Rooms labeled for social workers, psychologists and others who once helped delinquent girls are filled with health care workers and elderly residents from the rural area. "It's zooming today. We've noticed that despite our best efforts to say come at your scheduled time, people are coming 10, 15 minutes early," says Shannon Zoffka, executive director of the Tama County Public Health Department.