Austin Will Focus On Priority Groups As State Opens Eligibility

AUSTIN, TX — As the state of Texas plans to open up vaccine eligibility to all adults next week, Austin leaders will continue to prioritize higher-risk individuals.

In a joint sessions meeting between Austin City Council and Travis County Commissioners Court Tuesday, leaders discussed their concerns on the states's decision to open vaccine eligibility to all adults.

The Texas Department of State Health Services announced Tuesday morning it would open eligibility to all Texas adults for the COVID-19 vaccine regardless of age, occupation or health status starting on March 29.

"At this stage while positivity is low, under 5%, we really need to focus some attention on those younger people who are having more person-to-person interactions to interrupt that transmission cycle," Austin's interim medical director, Dr. Mark Escott said.

Because of the state's decision, Escott said there still won't be as many vaccine doses as there are people signing up for them. Austin Public Health received 12,000 vaccine doses this week.

“We are still going to have to prioritize, we’re gonna have to focus efforts in particular areas and on particular groups to ensure that we are achieving the best public health outcome that we can,” he said.

Austin Mayor Steve Adler said he would have rather the state had focused on frontline workers first instead of opening eligibility to all age groups.

“I wish our next move had been to focus on essential workers and people that are really at the crossroads of passing this infection onto others,” Adler said.

Council Member Greg Casar also expressed concern about how a rush of newly eligible people might affect the chances of getting vaccines to those living in the ZIP codes with the lowest rates of vaccination.

"I will be really interested in ... how we make sure the system works if we have a big flood of people coming to they system — which is good," Casar said, "but how we handle it."

Director Stephanie Hayden-Howard said Austin Public Health is anticipating that there will be more vaccine available in April and said the agency can provide 37,000 shots per week through various clinics.

Data from the Texas Department of State Health Services shows that almost 77,000 Travis County residents aged 65 and older have received at least one dose of the vaccine.

The city-county health agency said it has administered more than 148,000 first doses as of this week.

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