‘For those who’re keen to go additional, it’s obtainable:’ Texans journey hours for COVID-19 vaccine

AUSTIN – A man from Dallas rented a car and drove 13 hours there and back to Amarillo to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Another Dallas couple signed up with multiple vendors across Texas before securing an appointment in a town of 6,000 people near Waco. A Dallas woman’s son planned a shot for her in San Antonio while she was on a waiting list at a vaccination site near her home.

Their stories are anything but unique. In a state where there are no restrictions on where people can get a coronavirus shot, desperate Texans spend hours trying to find one.

“It’s just free for everyone,” said Paul Martinez, 70, of Dallas, who drove his wife to Falls County for two hours to get a shot.

The state’s decision to vaccinate Texans everywhere should ensure access for all, including those who live in communities with few or no providers.

But in the insane shot to secure a shot, people put their names on every registration list they could find and jumped on the first appointment even if it was hours away.

However, this process doesn’t work for all Texans – especially those who lack the time, resources, or internet expertise to log in across multiple websites and then travel far in a matter of days. These residents are already at a disadvantage in a vaccine rollout that largely depends on online registration and websites that require a car.

A majority of Dallas County’s residents get their shot locally. But one in five in Dallas County who received the shot – more than 46,000 people – left the county to get vaccinated, according to the state. Most made their appointments in neighboring counties. But more than 11,000 others have been vaccinated in Bell, Harris, Smith, and at least 134 other counties in some of the most remote corners of the state.

As they left, thousands of others from across northern Texas and elsewhere came to Dallas County to look for the dates for a dose of vaccine.

Officials from several urban and rural counties said they don’t see a problem with the lack of residence restrictions. The more shots you give, the better.

“We’re glad someone came down,” said John Graves, CEO of Dimmit Regional Hospital, where about half of the people they vaccinate are from outside the county, southwest of San Antonio.

The Department of State Health Services said in a statement that the vast majority of people – 72% nationwide – have been vaccinated in the county where they live. More than 2.7 million Texans have it received at least one dose of the vaccine to this day.

“There have been many anecdotes about people who travel to get vaccinated, but the data shows that most people don’t travel far to get vaccinated,” said department spokeswoman Lara Anton.

The Expert Vaccine Allocation PanelA group of 17 public health experts, lawmakers and civil servants who guide decision-making are aware of the concerns and “consider whether changes need to be made,” Anton said.

The lack of residence restrictions wasn’t meant to get people driving across the state for a shot, said David Lakey, panel member and vice chancellor for health and chief medical officer for the University of Texas system. The idea was that people could travel to their area for a shot or get vaccinated in the place where they work or go to school, he said.

“It is easier for certain people to take a full day off and drive around the state and get vaccinated than it is for others. So that raises the issue of equity,” Lakey said.

The length of time people are ready to take a shot underscores the desperation for a vaccine to protect against the virus, which is more than claimed 39,000 live in Texas. The travelers don’t just go on one trip. Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines require a second dose, which is about a month after the first.

Several Dallas County residents said they searched for registration in a local location and found themselves in line behind 100,000 others or more.

Anthony Page’s online research led him to Amarillo. The city’s public health department offers a walk-in clinic with no appointment required. He drove to the panhandle for seven hours on the morning of January 26, received the shot, and returned to Dallas at midnight.

“It seems like your chances of getting the vaccine from one place to another vary greatly for reasons that are unclear,” said Page, 57, who said he falls into the state’s 1B vaccination priority group due to an underlying health condition.

Potter County, where Amarillo is located, has vaccinated more than 420 Dallas County residents, according to state data. The city’s vaccination center has even attracted people from other states, including New Mexico, Colorado and Kansas, said Casie Stoughton, Amarillos director of public health.

“We are definitely warm,” she said. “But most of the vaccine was certainly given [to people] here at home.”

That’s not true everywhere. The number of shots that locals take varies greatly from district to district.

By last week, according to the state, more than 60% of the shots taken in Dallas County had gone to local residents. About 18% was given to people who live in Collin, Denton, and Tarrant Counties.

It’s unclear how many of these residents work outside of the Dallas County county and may have received a shot through their workplace – like a hospital, nursing home, or clinic – or whether they traveled to a Dallas vaccination center, like the one in Fair Park. The state data does not contain this information.

A mass vaccination clinic from Denton County on Texas Motor Speedway Last week mainly attracted local residents, but some were from Pennsylvania and Louisiana, said county spokeswoman Jennifer Rainey.

Nationwide, only about 8,290 people outside of Texas got a shot here, a tiny percentage of the total number of people vaccinated, Anton said.

In Washington County, a more rural county northwest of Houston, only about 25% of their hub’s shots were used to vaccinate residents, estimated County Judge John Durrenberger. Harris County’s residents received the second highest number of cans after locals. But people come from as far away as Amarillo, El Paso and Laredo, he said.

“People are eager to get the vaccine and they will go to great lengths to get it,” said Durrenberger. “Wherever they can register, they’ll get the shot.”

This has proven to be a challenge for some locations.

Without a central nationwide registration system, each vaccination center has its own registration process. Many are online. While the state still has a limited supply of recordings, some people put their names on multiple lists and take the first appointment they get.

For Bell County, this has resulted in cancellations and no-shows that are time-consuming to rebook, said County Judge David Blackburn.

“We were able to fill that in again, but we made hundreds of calls off the waiting list every day,” he said. The county is trying to solve the problem by posting appointments on a weekly basis.

“The bottom line is that there just isn’t enough supply,” said Blackburn.

Alan Samuels, who lives in Dallas, knows this firsthand. The 59-year-old with underlying health problems said he tried to register at five local vaccination sites and was “standing in line for miles”.

When Samuels learned that his Austin-based brother-in-law could schedule an appointment the next day in the capital, Samuels decided to give it a try.

At first everything was booked out. But one night last week, just before Samuels went to bed, he pulled out his cell phone to check the website. There were open appointments.

Last Saturday, Samuels made the three-hour drive to Austin for his first dose.

“If you want the vaccine, try every resource you can,” he said. “When you’re ready to go further, it’s available.”