AUSTIN, Texas — After nearly two years, the Travis County COVID-19 Vaccine Collaborative will be closing shop on its free drive-thru and mobile vaccine teams after Dec. 31.
The group's efforts to administer vaccines in the most affected ZIP codes began in February 2021 with a mass drive-thru clinic at Circuit of the Americas when Travis County partnered with Bastrop County, Caldwell County, Hays County, Ascension Seton and CommUnityCare Health Centers.
"The efforts then evolved to hosting weekend drive-thru clinics at the Travis County Exposition Center and deploying strike teams to mobile clinics at places like schools, churches, grocery stores, and community centers, so people can access COVID-19 vaccines for free, without insurance, at locations and time most convenient to them," Travis County wrote in a press release earlier this week.
Since February 2021, the group, along with the help of Ascension Seton, distributed more than 430,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines. That includes the 137,304 doses Travis County distributed with the help of the following healthcare provider partners:
- CommUnityCare: 73,839 doses
- Travis County Emergency Service District 11: 32,936 doses
- Ascension Seton: 24,518 doses
- Central Texas Allied Health Institute: 6,011 doses
Of the roughly 24,000 doses handed out by Travis County through Ascension, 71% of the vaccine recipients identified as Hispanic or Latino, 44% said their primary language was Spanish, and 41% were receiving their first or second doses.
“I’m incredibly proud of all the work that went into delivering hundreds of thousands of doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Travis County neighborhoods that had higher rates of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths,” said Travis County Judge Andy Brown. “Vaccines have been a life-saving tool in this pandemic, and thanks to all of our community partners, we were able to increase Travis County’s vaccination rates especially among the most vulnerable.”
Following Dec. 31, residents can get their vaccines from physicians' offices, pharmacies, Austin Public Health clinics and other health care facilities. Vaccine providers can also be found at Vaccines.gov, or Vacunas.gov in Spanish.