FORT WORTH, Texas — Wednesdays at the Fort Worth Zoo mean half-price admission, making it one of the most popular times to go. That's exactly why Tarrant County is launching Wednesday pop-up COVID vaccine clinics there, in the midst of what they fear could be another spike in the virus.
"We're back after a one week hiatus on the emerging health issues, and what a drastic change actually, and not for the good," said Tarrant County Public Health Director Vinny Taneja, as he started to present Tuesday at Commissioners Court.
Taneja shared some sobering trends during his presentation. In recent weeks, he said the county's positivity rate (how many people are testing positive compared to how many people are testing overall) has jumped from about 4% to about 6%.
COVID hospitalizations are up from a few weeks ago, too.
"In terms of numbers, we had 90 people in the hospital," Taneja said of three weeks ago. "We're at about 174 in the hospital. So things are picking up."
One of the reasons, he said, is the highly spreadable Delta variant. Another reason? Unvaccinated people. State records show 48% of eligible Tarrant County residents are fully vaccinated, but that number drops to just 29% when you include ineligible people (children 11 and under).
That leaves a large portion of the population vulnerable to the virus.
"You can lead a horse to the trough, but you can't make them drink," County Judge Glen Whitley said of eligible people who haven't yet been vaccinated. "I think we've done everything we can to make the vaccines available."
But they're still finding more places to offer it, like the Fort Worth Zoo.
"We're targeting families with kids and multiple reasons for that," Taneja said.
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They want to talk to parents overall about vaccinations, but also want to make sure kids have the opportunity to be fully vaccinated against COVID before heading back to school next month.
Anything they can do to keep this bump in COVID from becoming a wave.