Save Our Seniors Initiative: Covid-19 Vaccine Update

Meals on Wheels Texas was able to connect with the Texas Division of Emergency Management last week. They are coordinating the Save Our Seniors Initiative to get seniors vaccinated.

Here is what we learned (it is a little long but bear with us):

1. The initiative is being coordinated with the six Assistant Chiefs of Emergency Management (OEM) around the state.

2. Each week DSHS provides OEM with a list of counties, based on virus related criteria, where the vaccines will take place

3. The assistant chiefs then contact the County Judge and ask them if they want the national guard to come and vaccinate seniors. If the Judge says yes, they ask the County Judge for a list of service providers with whom they can coordinate. They also ask the County Judge whether they want to conduct the vaccines in a central location or vaccinate homebound seniors, or a combination of both.

4. In week one they vaccinated about 8.000 seniors and in week two they vaccinated about 10,000 seniors. They are using a combination of all the available vaccines but are hoping to move primarily to Johnson and Johnson so they don't have to come back to communities.

5. They are very interested in partnering, especially if folks have central locations that can be used and/or access to transportation to get those who are mobile to a central location. They are also interested to know if you have a list of seniors who have expressed interest in getting vaccinated.

We discussed coordination with Meals on Wheels organizations and the agreement was that:

1. TDEM will forward the weekly list of counties to MOWT and we will share with members

2. MOWT will provide TDEM with a list of all MOW programs by County and will assist with making connections if they cannot reach folks.

All this to say, your local Office of Emergency Managment and County Judge are critical in this process.

Week 3 Update:

The Governor announced new participating counties (listed below). 18,000 doses of vaccine have been allocated for the following counties. If you serve one of these counties and want to participate, please contact your local Office of Emergency Management and County Judge as they are coordinating the initiative.

You can find your Assistant OEM Chief here (link).

Counties participating in the third round of the program are Aransas, Atascosa, Brooks, Culberson, Fisher, Grimes, Hopkins, Houston, Jim Wells, Jones, Kinney, Lee, Leon, Liberty, Madison, Matagorda, Menard, Motley, Rains, San Patricio, San Saba, Shelby, Terrell, Trinity, Val Verde, Webb, Willis, and Yoakum.

Below are links to the announcements about the programs and the weekly announcements that include counties served so far.

Initial Announcement: https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-announces-save-our-seniors-initiative-to-vaccinate-homebound-seniors-in-texas
Week 1 Announcement: https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-tdem-launch-first-week-of-save-our-seniors-initiative-in-26-counties
Week 2 Announcement: https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-announces-34-counties-participating-in-second-week-of-save-our-seniors-initiative
Week 3 Announcement: https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-announces-third-week-of-save-our-seniors-initiative-in-28-counties