Beaumont primed for mass vaccinations with no doses in sight

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  • Beaumont Mayor Becky Ames said the city is ready to vaccinate 1,000 people a day.
    Beaumont Mayor Becky Ames said the city is ready to vaccinate 1,000 people a day.
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Beaumont officials are logistically prepared to vaccinate en masse as soon as an ample number of doses arrive. The big question officials can't get an answer to is when they can expect to receive any.

“We’ve got a plan in place, and we can start doing them immediately,” said Mayor Becky Ames. “We can do up to 1,000 a day at the Civic Center, but right now we don’t know that we’re receiving any vaccines. We have a plan in place, we have the schematics and we’d be able to do it at least three days a week -- maybe more.”

The Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) is responsible for dispensing doses to communities, as well as deciding who gets how many. Jefferson County received 4,350 doses from the week five allocation sent to various pharmacies, while Orange County received 130  and Hardin County received 1,800. Next week, the Beaumont Public Health Department is set to receive 0 doses, the Jefferson County Health Department will receive 1,950 doses, the Port Arthur Health Department will receive 300 doses, while Chambers County will receive 1,200 doses. Although no doses are set to be sent to the city's Health Department, Ames told The Examiner state officials have been made aware of the need.

“I’m hoping that’s going to change, but right now I can’t say for certain that we have any vaccines coming for Beaumont,” she said. “If someone called us today and said they had 100 or 200 (doses) available, we could handle 200 a day at the Health Department. But if we get notification that we’re getting 1,000 or 2,000, we could do 1,000 a day out of the Civic Center and have it mobilized in 24 hours.

“We’re not just sitting back; we are diligently trying to find out if we can get some and why they’re going to certain places,” she said, taking it a step further to say the city has already ironed out the logistics of vaccinating the public en masse. 

Pending state approval and the arrival of more doses, the city is prepared to use its 311 service to schedule patient arrivals. Ames said if the city does get doses delivered, the Beaumont Health Department’s nurses will be administering the vaccines, along with help from contracted nurses thanks to a $68,000-grant specifically for that purpose.