Tarrant County Ends Partnership To Deliver More COVID-19 Vaccine Months Early
FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) - A partnership intended to deliver more COVID-19 vaccine doses in Tarrant County is ending early.
As vaccination rates remain slow, the UNT Health Science Center is going to wind down its efforts by the end of this month.
After five months though, there are some zip codes where the vaccinated population is in single digits.
It's under 30% county-wide and the county is going to now take the lead again on the effort.
Two Tarrant County commissioners and the Tarrant County Public Health Director expressed disappointment with the results.
Commissioners felt the effort just wasn't strong enough.
UNT created a public marketing campaign, organized some large vaccination sites, then moved to smaller pop-up sites recently.
Demand didn't change much during the past few months and county staff felt with less demand, they had the ability to take over again.
But some commissioners compared it to declaring victory in a war and just leaving.
"They were supposed to come to us and tell us how to move the needle in these communities and it just has not happened," said Tarrant County Commissioner Roy Charles Brooks.
In a statement sent to CBS 11, the UNT Health Science Center said, "While HSC and Tarrant County agree that the timing is right to wind down the vaccination partnership, HSC remains committed to improving the health and well-being of our community and looks forward to continued partnerships with Tarrant County."