Dallas County plans to super size the large scale vaccine hub at Fair Park.
Health and Human Services Director Dr. Philip Huang said the county wants to transition to a drive-through model capable of boosting vaccination capacity to as many as 12,000 people per day.
Huang made the announcement Tuesday morning during a meeting of the Dallas County Commissioners Court.
Huang said the drive-through site will be ready by next week but the county is still working out vaccine supply issues with the state for the expanded operation. A more likely time frame for the larger vaccination plan is the week of Feb. 15.
Fair Park is currently one of the largest vaccine hubs in Dallas County capable of administering doses to as many as 3,000 people per day. By switching to a model that is primarily a drive-through, they expect to be able to administer the larger number of doses with about the same medical staff.
"We all want to get everyone vaccinated as quickly as possible. We want to do it in an equitable manner. We want to slow the spread as much as we can. Right now there’s just very limited vaccine and we’ve got over 510,000 people signed up this morning on our registration list," Huang said.
Since the Fair Park site opened on Jan. 11, the county has administered 31,095 first doses of the vaccine and 1,785 second doses. This week Dallas County received an allotment of 9,000 doses of vaccine for the Fair Park hub.
Dallas County is also switching to a new appointment setting method with QR codes and paperless check-in for vaccines.
The old methods allowed appointment sharing where many people sent invitations to friends or family members who did not have valid appointments.
"The QR code system that we will implement, partially by today fully by tomorrow, stops that," Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said.
There are still concerns about too few Dallas County vaccines going to people in zip code areas hardest hit by the virus. While registration is still coming into the county's list from lower priority areas, Dr. Huang said appointments are being made more heavily from the priority areas.
In Denton County, providers hope to administer 10,000 vaccines per day at a drive-through hub at Texas Motor Speedway. If the Fair Park hub can top the 10,000 per day mark, it'd become the largest vaccine hub in the state.
