Data shows discrepancies in Travis County COVID-19 vaccine distribution
AUSTIN, Texas - Local leaders have been critical of the State of Texas' rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine. There are reports of delayed shipments to providers, doses sitting on shelves, and clinics vaccinating people out of order.
The Texas Department of State Health Services is in charge of distribution and oversees administration. They have not returned any of FOX 7 Austin’s many requests for more information.
"As soon as the vaccine comes from the federal to the state to us, we're ready to get it out there," said Dr. Anas Daghestani, CEO of Austin Regional Clinic.
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Texas DSHS has distributed more than 52,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to Travis County providers, including hospitals, medical practices, health clinics and pharmacies.
Austin Regional Clinic officials said they will run out of the 7,000 doses allotted to them in the coming days. "We are working very closely with the state and local health authorities and hoping to receive notification any moment for additional vaccine shipments, hopefully over the next few days," Daghestani said.
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The DSHS website shows Tarrytown Pharmacy has received 500 doses. A spokesperson for the pharmacy said they've been out since last week, and are waiting for more vaccines.
"As we immunize, we are saying, ‘Hey, these patients received a dose of the vaccine.’ And then that naturally indicates that we've provided a dose of the vaccine, therefore we're down a dose," said James Cong, director of business development at Tarrytown Pharmacy.
Austin Public Health leaders said that's true across the board.
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"Every provider we talk to is either going to run out this week or have already run out of vaccine. There is simply not vaccine sitting on the shelves in Travis County in any substantial number," said Dr. Mark Escott, interim health Authority for the City of Austin.
However, the Texas DSHS dashboard tells a different story. The state claims the dashboard is updated every day with information reported by providers. It shows a little more than 24,000 people in Travis County have been given their first shot of the vaccine, less than half of the 52,000 doses given to providers in the county. The most have gone to hospitals, nearly 23,000 according to the data.
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However, hospitals have administered about 13,000. The health department said any delays at hospitals may have to do with COVID-19 case spikes and reporting demands.
"The feedback we’re getting from providers is they are struggling with the documentation requirements from the State," Escott said.
DSHS shows pharmacies have administered about 4,100 of the 4,500 they've received. Tarrytown maintains a list of people in each vaccine priority category and books them as they get more shots.
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"Sometimes you have like four doses leftover at the end of the day, because the bottles have to be used. We'll just call a couple people out there, like a couple extra people on the list, say, ‘Hey, can you get here in like 30 minutes and we can give you a shot?’’ Cong said.
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When trying to speed up the vaccination process, Austin Regional Clinic ran into trouble sticking to vaccine priority groups last weekend during a walk-in vaccination event for 1,000 first responders and healthcare workers.
"We’ve had cars coming by and people we tried to screen, making sure that everybody fit those categories, and learned later that there were a few instances where they didn't fit that category," said Daghestani.
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Their clinics have since switched to appointment-only scheduling to avoid that.
Austin Public Health said the state is working on a better dashboard so that people can easily see how many doses each provider has available. Public Health is also working on a centralized registration system so they can alert people when they are eligible for their first dose.