Garland begins giving COVID-19 vaccines to health care workers

After receiving its first shipment of coronavirus vaccines on Wednesday morning, Garland has started vaccinating front-line health care workers.

Garland’s director of health, Jason Chessher, said 22 people were vaccinated Wednesday

The first group of people vaccinated included public-health nurses and medical assistants who will administer the vaccine, physician assistants and nurse practitioners as well as other health care workers who give COVID-19 tests to residents and city staffers.

Next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings, the city will begin vaccinating firefighters from Garland, Rowlett and Sachse as they finish their shifts. Chessher expects that about 100 to 120 people will receive the vaccine each day.

The city also plans to give vaccines to Garland ISD school nurses and employees at local detention facilities.

With the city not expecting the first round of vaccines to arrive until January, at the earliest, this week’s delivery “was a really nice surprise,” Chessher said.

As of Wednesday, Garland had recorded 16,212 cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began. Of that total, 4,055 were still considered active.

“They’re certainly much higher than we’d like them to be,” Chessher said of the case numbers. “We seem to be in the middle of a second wave.”

To date, the city has also documented at least 129 deaths related to the virus.

Chessher said the city tentatively expects another round of vaccines to arrive in February.

In the meantime, the health director encourages Garland residents to continue wearing masks, to maintain social distancing and to stay up to date by checking the city’s website for new information.

“I also encourage people to not be discouraged because they have to wait,” he added. “At least for residents of Garland, Rowlett and Sachse, as soon as we get a vaccine they are eligible to take, we are going to vaccinate them with urgency.”