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None of what you just stated matters when folks who signed up 60 days ago in BC can't get an appointment.

The hub may work great, but getting a slot to get there is far from straightforwatd.

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I agree it doesn't sound like the best system. Hopefully they are working on it. Though I think it's safe to say the demand is high than the product.

I do think it matters a great deal. If/when availability increases for the vaccine both hubs will be able to increase their numbers. If they could only do 2,000/week because the hubs aren't run well then it wouldn't matter that they could get 15,0000/week.

I think it's comforting knowing that these local hubs are operating well. It's just hard to get one of the few spots available, which I agree is frustrating. More vaccines will help for sure.

MUAG said:

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My wife and I, both in our 80s. signed up Jan 26. Haven't heard anything. Disappointing to hear folks that signed up after us are getting vaccinated before us.

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Sign up for Washington County. Both of the folks I know who've signed up had appointments within a week.

I signed up for the waiting list about a month ago and received an email on Friday about setting up an appointment. Not real sure what their process is.

Yes. They are pretty expeditions on getting folks appointments.

Walmart currently has a lot of appointments available this week as of 9:45 am Sunday.

https://www.dshs.texas.gov/news/updates/COVIDVaccineAllocation-Week12.pdf

Week 12 FIRST DOSE allocations.

More locations getting FIRST DOSE allocations in the county. But the numbers are still small.



Currently, 41% of 65+ category of state residents have at least one dose.

Currently, 54% of 65+ category of Brazos county residents have at least one dose.

No data on where they got the injection.

Which vaccine is being given at the Brazos Center Moderna or Pfizer?

It's been moderna.

I have received notice from the Brazos Center that I am able to make an appointment, and I was able to make an appointment at Walmart.

Any pros/cons to using Walmart or the Brazos center to get the vaccine?

Brazos center is several stations you have to check in at. Walmart probably not. But either would be fine as long as you can get it.

I think someone mentioned that the Brazos center vaccines are moderna. Any idea which ones Walmart has? Maybe that might affect which facility to utilize.

No clue what WalMart has but the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are nearly the same. The only reason to choose one over the other would be if you have a known allergy to something in one of them.

dubi said:

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AgSportsFan2007 said:

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I think someone mentioned that the Brazos center vaccines are moderna. Any idea which ones Walmart has? Maybe that might affect which facility to utilize.

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I'd go with whichever facility could see me the fastest.

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I prefer the Brazos Center as it's not only dedicated exclusively to the giving of shots, but has actual nurses and emergency medical personnel on standby as well.

JayHowdy! said:

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I have received notice from the Brazos Center that I am able to make an appointment, and I was able to make an appointment at Walmart.

Any pros/cons to using Walmart or the Brazos center to get the vaccine?

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One pro for Brazos Center is that you are automatically locked in for a second shot there. At least as of several weeks ago, you had to schedule both separately at Walmart and Sam's (I'm fully aware my info could be outdated now, but just sharing our experience!).

A&M alumna AJ Renold and the Red Cross (all volunteers) have done a pretty amazing job standing up the vaccine process or from scratch at the Brazos Center

Got my Brazos County green light today. Appointment on Wednesday morning. Pretty quick turnaround from my initial email from 2/22.

I'd imagine the vaccines at Walmart are Moderna. Since the Pfizer vaccines have to be stored at such extremely cold temps, typically hospital settings are the only ones set up for that. I know that Methodist down in Houston is administering Pfizer from their hospitals.

https://www.kbtx.com/2021/03/01/brazos-center-vaccine-hub-to-administer-10000-shots-as-it-gives-out-both-first-and-second-doses-this-week/

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BRYAN, Texas (KBTX) - For the first time since administering its first shots as part of a trial run exactly one month ago, the vaccine hub at the Brazos Center will begin giving first and second-dose vaccinations during the same week.

The hub is set to administer 10,000 vaccine doses this week, more in a single week than it ever has before. Those shots are split evenly in half between the first and second doses. Brazos County COVID-19 Vaccination Task Force Chief Jim Stewart says they're going to give out all 5,000 of their allocated first doses to begin the week.

"We'll run those Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday morning," Stewart said. "We'll take a pause, take a breath, then Wednesday afternoon we'll start administering the second doses. We'll do that Wednesday afternoon, Thursday, and Friday."

While first-dose shots continue to be administered inside the Brazos Center for the first half of the week, a drive-thru will be set up in the back parking lot for second doses. Stewart says this is to avoid confusion between people coming in for different doses. He says they hope to have it ready by Thursday afternoon or Friday to test it.

"Once we get the drive-thru established, you'll be queried whether you're first or second dose," Stewart said. "If you're the first dose, they'll park you. If you're the second dose, they'll direct you around to the backside of the parking lot, you'll flow through the tent, and then we'll put you in the observation area for 15 minutes or so to make sure you're okay."

Stewart says everyone with a second dose appointment scheduled for this week will still get their second shot by Friday. They will not be affected by last week's rescheduling as the hub hopes to give out more shots with each passing week.

"This week we're splitting it in half, but the volume of vaccines, as you can well imagine, is going to increase," Stewart said. "We're going to have to do first and second doses concurrently. That was why we decided to do the drive-thru on site."

All 5,000 of the second doses for the upcoming week have already been claimed, Stewart says, but there are still first-dose appointments available. He encourages everyone to check their email in order to officially confirm those appointments.

Stewart is also excited about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine officially receiving emergency use authorization from the FDA on Saturday. While he says the Brazos Center hub will continue to get the Moderna vaccine for the foreseeable future, he hopes to get Johnson & Johnson's one-shot vaccine into the mix as soon as possible.

"That would cut our workload in half," Stewart said. "When I bring you through and give you Moderna, I know I'm going to see you again in a month or so. But if I give you Johnson & Johnson, I give you a hug and a kiss, off you go, and I'll never see you again, so it would be fantastic if we could do that. We're going to administer whatever they give us."

The hub was allocated 7,000 doses last week, but Stewart says they ultimately administered 7,325 with the extra doses that are found in some vials they receive. Since giving out those first shots on January 28, Stewart says roughly 13,500 doses have been administered at the Brazos Center hub.

Stewart also wants to send out a thank you to all the volunteers who give their time and effort to the hub's operation. He says each one of them is crucial to the hub's success, and it couldn't function without them.

"On any given day, we have 180 volunteers that come through there - 90 in the morning and 90 in the afternoon. Some of them double up," Stewart said. "I'm very cautious about them losing their enthusiasm because we're in this for the long haul. They are a super bunch of folks out there."

Stewart says anyone who is interested in becoming a volunteer at the hub needs to go through the American Red Cross.

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AgProgrammer said:

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I'd imagine the vaccines at Walmart are Moderna. Since the Pfizer vaccines have to be stored at such extremely cold temps, typically hospital settings are the only ones set up for that. I know that Methodist down in Houston is administering Pfizer from their hospitals.

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It is. My wife and I have appointments there early in the morning. Our first was at the Brazos Center.

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/03/01/972538146/johnson-johnson-vaccine-rollout-begins-in-u-s-as-covid-19-cases-tick-up


More on J&J:

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Johnson & Johnson has begun shipping nearly 4 million doses of its newly authorized COVID-19 vaccine across the U.S., officials said Monday, and is expected to further scale up supply in the coming weeks and months.

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Johnson & Johnson's addition to the vaccine arsenal will be limited at first, but company officials expect to scale up production in the coming months. Gorsky said the company is committed to delivering 100 million doses by June and "up to a billion" by the end of 2021.

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"When we say 100 million doses by June, that means 100 million vaccinations, patients that will have been treated," he said. "So we're excited. We're going to work hard to make sure that we follow through on all those commitments. ... We think it's really important for our country and the world."

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This number represents the entirety of Johnson & Johnson's current inventory, and supply will be limited in the ensuing weeks. He said the company expects to deliver some 16 million additional doses by the end of March, "predominantly in the back half of the month."

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Currently Pfizer / Moderna is distributing 40 to 50 million doses per month.

J&J's 20 million for March would be an equivalent of 40 Pfizer / Moderna.

Inoculation will definitely be picking up.

KidDoc said:

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Good to see they are finally getting a mass vaccine program started roughly 6 weeks late but still good.

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They can only give out as many doses as they receive. I'm not sure why the State has been stingy with them. But good to see them getting 10,000. I wonder if that will go up some when they are doing 1st and 2nd round concurrently?

I'm not involved with the mass vaccine program but my understanding is that we did not get as many allocated as other areas because we did not have the system in place to get them into arms. As we use more and more then they will allocate more I believe.

KidDoc said:

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I'm not involved with the mass vaccine program but my understanding is that we did not get as many allocated as other areas because we did not have the system in place to get them into arms. As we use more and more then they will allocate more I believe.

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They have had the system in place since day 1, January 28th I believe. From what i've read, and seen on KBTX there were a couple weeks where they were promised an amount, but that didn't show up. I don't think they have changed anything major operationally since that day 1. Now they will give there go at a drive-thru next week for the second dose. That's a major change for sure. I hope it goes well.

But i can see where the state will slowly increase a hubs allotment once they prove they can do more and more. I don't think they will send any Hub 10,000 vaccines week 2. Unfortunate it took 6 weeks, but at least the Brazos Valley Hub is at the 10k mark.

Nosmo said:

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Inoculation will definitely be picking up.

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KidDoc can correct me if i'm wrong, but I do not think this is an inoculation. It's a vaccine. Meaning you can still get COVID-19 even after your second dose, and still pass it to others. But your signs and symptoms will be much diminished and hospitalization chance greatly reduced. Same think with the flu vaccine I believe.

meteorag06 said:

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Nosmo said:

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Inoculation will definitely be picking up.

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KidDoc can correct me if i'm wrong, but I do not think this is an inoculation. It's a vaccine. Meaning you can still get COVID-19 even after your second dose, and still pass it to others. But your signs and symptoms will be much diminished and hospitalization chance greatly reduced. Same think with the flu vaccine I believe.

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But the flu vaccine is typically 15-30% effective. This is 95% effective which is a huge difference.

Wait. What? You mean to tell me we will be doing this mask bull sheet for damn ever?!?!?

scd88 said:

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Wait. What? You mean to tell me we will be doing this mask bull sheet for damn ever?!?!?

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A&M said we had to mask even if vaccinated. Until probably next year.

Nosmo said:

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inoculation

/inkylSH()n/

noun

the action of inoculating or of being inoculated; vaccination.

"inoculation against flu was readily available"

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And I stand corrected. Maybe my lazy butt should of googled it before posting. My bad.

KidDoc said:

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I'm not involved with the mass vaccine program but my understanding is that we did not get as many allocated as other areas because we did not have the system in place to get them into arms. As we use more and more then they will allocate more I believe.

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https://www.texastribune.org/2021/01/20/texas-coronavirus-vaccine-data/

From the Texas Tribune article (Jan 20):

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As the state began the massive undertaking of distributing the coronavirus vaccine, its early rollout was beset by data problems that left state officials with immunization and dose information that was outdated, incomplete and sometimes misleading.

Health care providers feared those inaccurate numbers, collected by the state's immunization registry, ImmTrac2, and another system were being used by the state to decide who would get the weekly allotment of vaccine and by others to decide who would get blamed for moving too slowly as a desperate public clamored for shots.

Health officials say the registry data were not used to dole out vaccines in the early weeks of the rollout that's a misconception, they said but added that the data they're collecting with ImmTrac2 could soon become a central factor in how many vaccine doses Texas gets from the federal government going forward.

In the first six weeks of the vaccine rollout, the federal government allocated doses based largely on population, but will likely start using the vaccination rate how fast doses are going into arms as "at least a piece of their allocation process," said Lara Anton, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of State Health Services, which runs the registry.

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"We haven't been using the data that's in ImmTrac for allocation, but it sounds like we are going to need to place greater emphasis on that," Anton said. "Because if they think we're not using up all of their vaccines, they're not going to send us additional vaccine. You know, they'll send it somewhere else that's using more."

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From everything I've found, the "use it or lose it" scenario was "feared" and talked about, but never a factor in the allocation. Officially it's based on an "expert panel". Looking around the state, it appeared some hot spots with a higher ratios of cases and deaths per capita were targeted. But I can't say I can prove it.

Shot providers have been out of vaccine since this thing started.

I'm sure there's isolated stories, but by and large it's been frustration from rationing and politics.

The US administered 74 million flu shots last September, and nobody noticed. The flu vaccine was ready on the shelves. Yes, these are stored differently, but 20 million doses in the first 4 weeks shouldn't have been that big of a deal.

I think national distribution to states are now most closely related to 1A & 1B populations. And similar Texas to counties. The big "hubs" are making it harder to make sense of county numbers, since they serve multiple counties.

The article said, tracking was a huge issue.

As a hospital system administrator told my wife, "We need more vaccine. And it needs to be predictable".

Rationing.