Brazos County commissioners share their dissatisfaction about what they consider is the low percentage of coronavirus vaccine that has been administered so far.
Commissioners were told Tuesday morning that Brazos County has 7,075 doses. That includes 1,500 doses that arrived Tuesday but won’t be available to patients until next week.
Commissioner Russ Ford said that was “unacceptable”.
Out of the nearly 5,600 doses that are available, 3,000 patients have received the first of two vaccinations.
Responding to the commission’s frustrations were the Brazos Valley district coordinator for the Texas department of emergency management Ponch Gonzales and Brazos County emergency management coordinator Michelle Meade.
Gonzales said “the judge and the commissioners can obviously request these providers to step up their game. But logistically, it’s a big undertaking. Just because of each individual that goes in there, you’re talking about a 45 minute time pack for each individual. So you multiply that by 300,000 in the county, that’s a lot of minutes. So, they’re getting it done as fast as they can. Logistically, you’re still pulling somebody off a job to go give a shot when they need to be in the ICU.”
Commissioners suggested expanding vaccination sites to fire departments. Gonzales told WTAW News there has been push back from fire chiefs around Texas and around the country, explaining a fire chief may say “Hey wait, back the bus up. We don’t want to be part of that because we’re putting our people at risk unduly…meaning yes, we’re going to transport somebody, but are we going to take on this other job when we’re already short staffed because we have COVID positive in our staff and we’re short handed and we’re on overtime.”
Click below to hear comments from the January 5, 2021 Brazos County commission meeting. Speakers include Ponch Gonzales, Michelle Meade, and commissioners Nancy Berry, Irma Cauley, and Russ Ford.