Vaccination Pact Between Tarrant County, UNT HSC Winding Down – NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth
After months of efforts to expand access to COVID-19 vaccines, Tarrant County and the University of North Texas Health Science Center will partner up at the end of the month.
The partnership, first announced in February, hired UNTHSC to provide strategic advice to the county on vaccination efforts, including site planning and public relations. The university oversaw the operations of vaccine sites opened in recent months in historically underserved areas of Tarrant County.
“People don’t come to the big places and I think we had to look at it from a different angle, and I think they do [UNTHSC] I feel like we have not made the most of taxpayers’ dollars, “said Glen Whitley, Tarrant County judge. “I think we found this to be a very difficult population to reach and I think we need to keep trying to reach them.”
As written, the contract could have run through September, but Whitley said he always had 30 days’ notice to end earlier. The HSC’s letter to the county said there are currently “many opportunities for Tarrant County’s residents to get the vaccine,” and the county agreed that “this is the natural end of some capacity-building efforts in the framework of COVID-19 is “. Vaccine deal between HSC and Tarrant County. “
An HSC spokesman made the following statement on Tuesday.
“Since the beginning of the pandemic, HSC has proudly worked with Tarrant County to conduct activities such as running COVID-19 test sites for first responders, contact tracing, educating and informing the public, and most recently, administering a vaccination program to expand the vaccine in Access.” historically underserved and difficult to reach communities. While HSC and Tarrant County agree that the time is right to end the vaccination partnership, HSC remains committed to improving the health and wellbeing of our community and looks forward to further partnerships with Tarrant County. ”
By Tuesday, 33% of Tarrant County’s residents had received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and 29% were fully vaccinated. At a commissioner’s court briefing Tuesday, District 1 commissioner Roy Brooks expressed concern about current vaccination rates in response to the end of the partnership.
Photo credit: Tarrant County Public Health
“Vinny [Taneja] 76105 mentions that this is one of those zip codes where only 8% of the population is vaccinated, ”Brooks said. “We didn’t manage to help the underserved. I am very disappointed.”
Tarrant County’s public health director Vinny Taneja said Tuesday the county was ready to step up public relations.
“We have hired staff that help. And of course we got a lot of help from city partners, ”said Taneja. “If you look at our social media right now, there are ‘take your summer back’ campaigns going on because a lot of people want to have a barbecue, you know? The fourth of July was just passing. Lots of people want to travel. “
Taneja noted an increasing trend towards hospital admissions for COVID-19 in Tarrant County over the past three weeks. He said almost all of the hospitalized COVID-19 patients are not vaccinated.
“We had 90 people in the hospital. We’re in the hospital at around 174 and we’re starting to see outbreaks in the community in different pockets, ”he said.
To date, more than 1.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been distributed in Tarrant County.
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