AUSTIN (KXAN) — Austin Public Health briefed local leaders Monday about a host of changes the department is working on to improve COVID-19 vaccine distribution. Notably, those changes include a shift in when appointments will be released. The department said it will now be releasing appointments for COVID-19 vaccines each Tuesday and Thursday so that those eligible can register.
- To learn more about registering for a COVID-19 vaccine through Austin Public Health, look here.
The move to release registration for COVID-19 appointments to Tuesdays and Thursdays started on Feb. 2, explained APH Director Stephanie Hayden-Howard. Lately, APH has been receiving 12,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses each week from the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS), but Hayden-Howard said if that amount increased, APH could also increase the number of days on which COVID-19 vaccination appointments are released.
This change comes at a time when demand for the COVID-19 vaccine outpaces the supply APH has, even for those who are eligible. APH said as of Tuesday morning, 532,339 people have registered on its waitlist for the COVID-19 vaccine. Those individuals could be in any tier and could be from any zip code in Texas (as DSHS requires) but APH said most of those people on that list are in the Austin-Travis County metro area.
Out of those 532,339 people signed up on the APH portal, the department said there are 188,825 of them eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine as of Tuesday morning — meaning people over the age of 50 who also meet the Phase 1B criteria.
Some people in that group of 188,825 people who fall into the highest-risk categories for COVID-19 will get emails from APH when appointments are about to become available. APH made it clear at Tuesday's meeting it doesn't have the resources to contact all 188,825 people each time vaccines become available.
APH has a system based on who is potentially eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine where people are awarded points based on their risk factors. The emails notifying people of COVID-19 vaccine appointments being released by APH go to the people who have the most points according to the APH system who appear to be in a position where they would be disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 and more likely to be hospitalized.
APH said these emails are sent out two hours prior to the vaccine registration becoming available on their portal.
Recently, APH has been getting 12,000 vaccines each week from the state, so at that rate, it should take around 16 weeks to make it through that group of people over 50 who meet the 1B criteria.
APH said it is not sending out appointment emails on Feb. 2.
APH said it also does not have the resources to call 12,000 people each week to remind them about appointments. On Tuesday, Travis County Commissioners approved an agreement with the city to use county staff to help APH with a call center for the COVID-19 vaccine. Hayden-Howard said with this new help from the county partnership, APH will be able to call some of the eligible individuals each week to alert them that appointments are available: those who are over the age of 80 (who have the highest risk of dying from COVID-19) as well as those who have expressed to APH they've had trouble registering online.
"Our hope is that they would be looking at their email. We are concerned that they are probably not looking at their email, and so there has to be an additional step in the process where folks are reaching out to them to schedule," Hayden-Howard said at the meeting Tuesday.
This call center outreach to certain people eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine will be available to help people register on the APH portal and to help them schedule a vaccine appointment. This partnership with the county to assist the call center will be in effect through the end of March, Hayden-Howard said.
The Austin metro area remains in Stage 5 of the COVID-19 risk levels used locally based on the region's COVID-19 hospitalizations. Austin-Travis County Interim Health Authority Dr. Mark Escott said Tuesday the latest UT Austin COVID-19 models project that hospitalizations will lower enough by Feb. 18 for the Austin metro area to move back down to Stage 4.
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