AUSTIN, Texas — Fayette County distributed 200 Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines to eligible recipients. One-hundred of those vaccines went to seniors as medics and volunteers administered the vaccine in the seniors' homes.
Ysleta Shults and her husband both received their first and only dose at their home in Flatonia.
"I've been waiting for it till Flatonia got something," Ysleta said. "I didn't want to go all the way to La Grange, Bastrop or anywhere else."
Fayette County set up the list of recipients after hearing Monday the Texas National Guard could assist administering the vaccines. On Friday, Ysleta said it reminded her of how doctors used to visit regularly.
"A long time ago, the doctor came to your house," she said. "Well, they don't come to your house anymore, so it's like that. You do appreciate people coming to your house and doing things for you."
The County worked with the Texas National Guard, Travis County Emergency Services and volunteers from Combined Community Action to administer the 100 homebound doses before they expired.
"Literally since the vaccines were announced, people have been calling me saying, 'Hey, I really need a vaccine, I'm scared, but I can't get out to go get one,'" Craig Moreau of Fayette County Emergency Management said. "Either, 'I'm too scared to get out to get one' or, 'I physically can't.' And we've been keeping a list of those folks."
Moreau heads up the County's Emergency Management and Homeland Security and helps coordinate requesting and distributing vaccines from the Texas Department of State Health Services and the federal government.
"I would love to do it again. I'd do it again tomorrow if we could," Moreau said. "Hopefully maybe as early as next week – we do have a long waiting list still, and then once the word got out that we were doing this, more people have called and more people have called. We've actually had triple the amount of calls this week than we had had in the previous several months."
Starting Monday, people 16 and older all qualify for COVID-19 vaccines in Texas. Moreau said while that has contributed to the influx of calls and sign-ups, the county will still prioritize the people who had access first.
"The priorities will always be our elderly and our most vulnerable populations first," Moreau said. "Those who are in the group 1A, 1B and 1C will still have priority, even though all adults now will be able to be vaccinated."
Moreau requested 1,500 more vaccines for the coming week in an effort to deliver vaccines to seniors in their homes and coordinate another drive-thru vaccine event. Shults said even with her vaccine, she still plans to take precautions.
"I'm not going to get COVID, for sure," Ysleta said. "I still probably will wear the mask and do the 6 feet apart."
None of the vaccines available are 100% effective at preventing the coronavirus. However, if somebody contracts COVID-19 after being vaccinated, symptoms will not be severe or lead to being hospitalized because of the virus.
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