300 Grayson County health providers apply to administer COVID-19 vaccine

SHERMAN, Texas (KXII) - As several companies develop COVID-19 vaccines, Grayson County is taking steps to ensure they will be ready when those vaccines become available.

Tuesday, Grayson County officials reviewed the CDC’s COVID-19 vaccination provider agreement.

This means the county will eventually be able to administer the vaccine, but County Judge Bill Magers said there are a lot of unknowns at this point.

“What we know is, the president and two drug companies said they have the vaccine coming, we don’t know when it’s going to be here, we don’t know what the quantities are, and we’re not exactly sure what the prioritization are going to be from the state," Magers said.

Magers said the county health department, along with 300 other health providers across the county are signed up to administer the vaccine.

“Our hope is that by all the health care providers, hospitals, doctors, the various agencies signing up to administer the vaccine, Grayson County will get a larger portion," Magers said.

Magers said the county will follow state guidelines for which groups of people get the vaccine first.

Last week, the Department of State Health Services announced the entire state of Texas was allotted less than 6,000 doses of Bamlanivimab, an antibody treatment to treat patients who already have COVID-19.

While this is a treatment not a vaccine, Magers expects vaccines will also be hard to come by.

“We expect very limited quantities of the vaccine," Magers said.

He said the county is taking steps to get extra refrigeration to prepare for storing whatever doses of the vaccine they do get.

“There’s some refrigeration requirements on this vaccine that are pretty significant so we’ve already put the ball in motion to get what we need to make sure that we can administrate the vaccine," Magers said.

Pfizer announced Texas will be one of four states where they will test distribution of the vaccine first.