Harris County is opening up new COVID-19 vaccination sites as the delta variant, a recent incentive program and federal regulators’ full Pfizer approval are expected to continue pushing up vaccine demand across the state.
Prior to the program, the county was averaging around 400 vaccinations per day. On Aug. 17, the day the program was announced, 914 received their first shot; the next day, the number climbed to 1,596 people.
Then, on Monday, the Federal Drug Administration granted full approval to Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine adults and teens.
“FDA approval is the culmination of many, many months of demonstrating the safety and efficacy of the vaccine,” said Dr. James Versalovic, pathologist-in-chief at Texas Children’s Hospital. “It’s the final capstone to the process.”
Versalovic said he expects the FDA approval will ease fears among many in the public that the vaccine was rushed and thus unsafe. About 56 percent of all Texans older than 12 have been fully vaccinated, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.
“We are are hopeful, and certainly expect to see more individuals lining up,” he said. “Those that have been hesitant to-date, now have the maximum assurance from the FDA, the full FDA stamp of approval.”
Arcadia Chirinos hadn’t heard about the news from the FDA by the time she walked into a pop-up vaccine clinic at a Food Town in north Houston on Tuesday. The 42-year-old mother said she decided to be vaccinated to protect her children, but was apprehensive after months of misinformation about vaccines.
“A lot of people haven’t gotten one, and it’s because they’re afraid,” she said.
For some, the FDA approval only strengthened their vaccine skepticism.
“This is disgusting and sick,”said Jennifer Bridges. “How could the FDA actually approve this? I cannot even fathom that.”
Bridges was a nurse at Houston Methodist Hospital until this summer, when she and more than 150 other employees resigned or were fired over refusal to comply with a mandate that all hospital employees be vaccinated by late June.
Bridges and 116 other Methodist employees unsuccessfully sued the hospital, alleging it was improper for them to be required to take a vaccine that was still under emergency use authorization, a rare designation that allowed for their vaccines to be fast-tracked for approval.
Bridges now works for a private health care provider, and said the FDA’s rubber stamp does nothing to change her belief that vaccines are unsafe.
“I will die before I get vaccinated,” she said.
robert.downen@chron.com
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