DENTON COUNTY, Texas — If you haven’t gotten a COVID-19 vaccine yet, Denton County Public Health wants you to register for a shot.
On Tuesday, the Texas Department of State Health Services announced all adults in Texas are eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine, starting Monday, March 29.
Denton County updated its website at 4 p.m. Tuesday to reflect the new eligibility requirement – which basically means any adult over the age of 16 in Texas can register with Denton County and be put on their waitlist.
To register for a COVID-19 vaccine with Denton County, click here and fill out the form.
“We expected to burn through our waitlist this week, even with re-invitations,” Denton County Public Health Director Dr. Matt Richardson said. “We were running out of willing participants that were currently eligible, so this is great timing for us.”
As of Tuesday morning, Denton County’s COVID-19 dashboard shows over 413,000 people have registered. Of that, more than 404,000 have already been invited to get a shot. The difference is only about 8,600 people.
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Texas Motor Speedway is handing out close to 12,000 doses every day, and processing recipients in under half an hour, the county says.
“We feel good about our process, and we're excited about expanded eligibility,” said Richardson.
However, Denton County Public Health admits that people not showing up for their appointments have been a bit of a problem. Last Friday, 20% of first dose appointments didn’t show up, Richardson said.
“No show rates are hard to explain. I think it's a whole lot of reasons,” Richardson said. “We do assign people an appointment time. Some of those are not convenient. Some people have something come up, something unexpected, a conflict. Some people may be on the fence about vaccine.”
Richardson said some people are able to get a shot elsewhere, which is good news. But if you registered with Denton County and no longer need a vaccine, they’re asking that you remove yourself from the waitlist to make room for others, who still need a shot.
“It'll be interesting to see this expanded eligibility, and if we're going to add a ton of names -- hard to know yet, but we'll know by the end of the week,” Richardson said. “We're just going to vaccinate as many people as possible as quickly as possible just like we've done for months.”