AUSTIN, Texas – About 1,000 COVID-19 vaccines were lost to disruptions caused by last week’s cold wave, which a top state health official said Tuesday was a relatively small number of doses.
Meanwhile, 4.5 million doses of the vaccine against the illness caused by the new coronavirus have been given so far, said Imelda García, the state’s associate health commissioner for laboratory and infectious disease services. At a virtual news conference, she said that 3.1 million were first doses while 1.4 million were second doses.
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Another 1.4 million more doses arrived Monday and Tuesday, she said.
The Texas Department of State Health Services reported another 234 deaths from COVID-19 Tuesday. According to Johns Hopkins University researchers, that brought the state's pandemic death toll to 42,318, the third-most in the country and the 24th most per capita.
The state reported 9,704 new coronavirus cases Tuesday, pushing the total number of Texas cases past 2.6 million since the pandemic started to 2,606,275, an estimated 192,883 of which were active. Of those cases, 7,014 required hospitalization Monday, the most recent day for which the state provided a total.
According to Johns Hopkins, the two-week rolling average of new cases has fallen to 8,165.9 per day, a decrease of 62.2%.