City to get ‘super site’ for COVID shots
As part of federal program, NRG Stadium will be able to administer up to 6,000 per day
The state will set up three mass vaccination sites at the end of this month at Houston’s NRG Stadium and Dallas-Fort Worth’s AT&T Stadium and Fair Park, Gov. Greg Abbott announced Wednesday.
The centers are part of a federal program to vaccinate up to 12,000 people a day across all three so-called “super sites.” The locations, operated mostly by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, will begin vaccinating members of the public on Feb. 24.
They will be the largest to administer the vaccine in the state, and come as federal agencies become more involved with statelevel plans as part of President Joe Biden’s response to the pandemic.
A cornerstone of the president’s plan is ramping up vaccine distribution, particularly in underserved communities that have been hit especially hard by the pandemic and ensuing recession.
“The impact of this virus has been disproportionate on people of color,” Mayor Sylvester Turner said earlier this week. “Yet when the vaccine is on the scene, it seems as though it is converse of that.”
Abbott said Wednesday that the sites “will allow us to expand access to COVID-19 vaccinations in underserved communities and help us mitigate the spread of the virus.”
The Houston site will be able to administer up to 6,000 shots per day, while the other two could administer as many as 3,000
apiece, according to FEMA. Additional information about registering for appointments will be announced over the next several days.
The sites will be the largest to administer COVID-19 vaccines in Texas, which has lost more than 38,000 residents to the coronavirus, and represent an increased federal presence in the state’s vaccine rollout under the Biden administration.
“Our state and local partners have made an extraordinary effort in the vaccine rollout. These sites are another opportunity to work together and assist in the vaccine administration,” said Tony Robinson, FEMA’s local administrator. “We are making progress, but the job isn’t complete until everyone who wants a vaccine receives a vaccine.”
Abbott had disclosed the locations in a tweet earlier this week, initially planning for one site in Houston and one in Dallas, each administering upward of 5,000 shots per day for eight weeks. The pilot program could expand to other cities if it is successful, officials said.
“We will work together with our state and local partners to closely monitor vaccination uptake at each of these sites and make real-time decisions to ensure the best utilization of the additional vaccines that have been made available,” a FEMA spokesperson said in an email.
The super sites will also follow state guidelines for vaccine eligibility. Currently, Texas is inoculating members of priority groups 1A and 1B — a set of more than 9 million people including health care workers, nursing home residents, most people with pre-existing conditions, and anyone 65 and older.
The agency is encouraging anyone who is able to get a vaccine before the new sites open to do so, instead of waiting for the additional supply. A spokesperson did not say whether a person must be a resident of Houston or Dallas to make an appointment.
In recent weeks, Texas officials have employed a similar strategy at the state level, designating about 80 vaccination “hubs” statewide that receive most of the weekly vaccine allotment. The largest hubs clock in just above 10,000 doses a week, though allocations vary by site.
This week, Houston Methodist Hospital received the largest allocation for a vaccine hub, with 12,675 doses — around 1,800 shots a day.
U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston and chair of the congressional coronavirus task force, said residents will also be able to make appointments for the super sites through their local jurisdiction’s vaccination scheduling system.
“It is time to get fully operable in fighting COVID-19 across the nation with an effective distribution protocol for getting vaccinations to millions of people as fast as possible,” said Jackson Lee, who had previously introduced legislation requiring FEMA’s help in upscaling inoculation sites.