Local officials say no vacccines for the public yet; But they are working together to try to have a plan to distribute them once they arrive

Seguin, TX, USA / Seguin Today

Darren Dunn

(Seguin) — There are no vaccinations now available for the general public, but at some point — later this year — that will change. Local officials all week have been stressing that the public needs to remain patient and that the only COVID-19 vaccine doses availabe locally have been going to medical workers and first responders, who the state identifies at Tier 1A recipients. There’s been a limited supply and there’s just not enough to begin to provide vaccinations for those in Tier 1B, which includes those over the age of 65 or those over the age of 16 who have a underlying medical condition.

Seguin City Manager Steve Parker again drove this fact home during a COVID-19 pandemic update that he gave Tuesday night to the Seguin City Council. Parker says even though there aren’t doses now avaible for the general public, he says local officials are working together to start trying to come up with a distribution strategy that will work whenever those doses finally arrived. It could be weeks or months before that happens, but he says they want to be ready to respond.

“Over the next couple of weeks, we are working on a plan with the hospital. As we get in future doses of the COVID vaccine — we want to come up with a plan of how we administer that with all the other agencies. The main focus at that point will be the 1B type people who are over 65, or who have medical conditions that we really need to be concerned with. At this point, all vaccines are either being administered to either public safety professionals or they are being administered to medical professionals,” said Parker.

Just getting enough vaccines to cover the county’s over-65 population is going to be a challenge, but Parker says the cities, the county and the hospital will work together to try to figure all of this out, so that when an adequate number of doses arrive, they can begin putting those shots into the arms of the people that need them most.

“There are 23,000 people over the age of 65 in Guadalupe County alone, and (right now) you’re looking at numbers of 100, 200, maybe 500 doses. So to get (doses) distrbuted to all those different people and get all those people over 65 vaccinated — is going to be a lengthy process. We will try to minimize that as much as possible, but overall our goal is to try to come up with a plan. We don’t have any ability to dictate when the state makes those allocations to us. It’s not as easy as just lining people up and walking down the aisle and giving them a shot and then letting them go home. You have to have staging for the people. You have to have people who are administering (the shots). You have to have people who are, kind of, quality controlling it and making sure that people are eligible for that. You also have to make sure that once they’re given the shot, that you have a place for them to sit for the next 15 to 20 mintues to make sure (that they are okay). You (also) have to keep your social distance. We really need to have a good plan, and that’s what we are doing with our local health providers, GRMC, the city of Schertz and the county to come up with that plan of how we distribute that,” said Parker.

Parker says he knows it is not easy being patient when there are national and statewide stories talking about more vaccines coming to Texas. He says it’s going to be difficult to know when they will actually arrive here, but he says they will do all that they can to be prepared and to make sure they are communicating effectively with the public.

“I just know that the community is going to hear that there are different people (in other places) getting allocations before us. It doesn’t mean that we are not wanting to serve our community and get those things out there. It just takes a little bit of time and we are going to work on that to make sure that we have a good rollout plan and try to do some type of mass vaccinations as soon as possible,” said Parker.

Parker’s update also served as a reminder that people still need to do all that the can to curb the spread of the virus.

“In the city of Seguin, we have about 33 cases overall, but the county (recently) got 645 new cases, which they have not been able to go through and sort and allocate those to the various municipalities within Guadalupe County. So those numbers will increase. There’s still a backlog at the state of seven to nine days. In particular, the number of deaths remains at 48. It’s been there for the last two months, while the state’s website shows 107 deaths in Guadalupe County alone,” said Parker.

The city has put into place more restrictions on restaurants and bars, due to the increased number of COVID-19 patients in the hospital. Parker says it’s just part of the effort to try to slow the spread of the virus.

“Last week, the city had to implement (more restrictions) — based on the state’s mandated guidelines from the governor’s office. Anytime the number of hospital beds available versus the number of hospitalizations hits 15 percent for seven consecutive days, that area is required to implement some new restrictions. That mainly applied to restaurants and bars. Bars are required to close, (and) restaurants are required to go down from 75 percent to 50 percent capcity. Elective surgeries for hospitals are also limited at that point and time. You can see here that we’ve been at 16-days total for over 15 percent and we are currently at 20.52 (percent). We have to hit seven consecutive days of being below 15 percent to go back to the previous restrictions of 75 percent (capacity at restaurants). Hopefully, as we get through this pandemic and we start to get the vaccines administered — obsviously these numbers will improve, but people in the meantime need to do their part by socially distancing and wearing their masks,” said Parker.

Residents are encouraged to stay home if they feel sick, and if you do go out, wear a mask, practice social distancing when you can, and wash your hands frequently.

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