The Liberty County Office of Emergency Management on Tuesday announced that a second round of COVID-19 vaccinations will be distributed this Wednesday and Thursday, March 17 and 18, at the Jack Hartel Building, 318 San Jacinto St., in Liberty. This is in addition to vaccinations that will be offered on Thursday and Friday, March 18 and 19, at the Dayton Community Center, 801 S. Cleveland St., Dayton, and on Friday, March 19, at the Cleveland Senior Citizens Center, 220 Peach Ave., Cleveland.
The Liberty clinic will be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; the Dayton clinic will be open 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily while supplies last. The Cleveland clinic will be open from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Last week, 500 people were vaccinated at the vaccination clinic at the Hartel Building.
The Liberty clinic is being offered by the Texas Department of State Health Services. The Dayton vaccination clinic is part of Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s Save Our Seniors Initiative, now in its third week.
“The continued expansion of our Save Our Seniors initiative is protecting elderly Texans from COVID-19 and ramping up our vaccination efforts across the state,” said Governor Abbott. “As we head into the third week of this program, I thank our state and local partners for making this initiative a continued success as we vaccinate seniors and mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in our communities.”
The state has allocated over 18,000 vaccine doses for the third week of the initiative, which the state will use in partnership with local officials and service organizations to target Texans who are 65 years and older or homebound. TDEM and TMD will work alongside local jurisdictions to set up a central drive-through vaccine clinic in the community or administer directly to homebound seniors — these decisions will be driven by local officials as they identify vulnerable residents in their communities to participate in this program.
Counties participating in the third round of the program are Aransas, Atascosa, Brooks, Culberson, Fisher, Grimes, Hopkins, Houston, Jim Wells, Jones, Kinney, Lee, Leon, Liberty, Madison, Matagorda, Menard, Motley, Rains, San Patricio, San Saba, Shelby, Terrell, Trinity, Val Verde, Webb, Willis, and Yoakum.
The clinic at the Jack Hartel Building this week is for people age 50 and older and people 16 years or older with underlying health conditions. The Dayton clinic is for ages 65 or older.
No advance registration is needed for the Liberty and Dayton clinics; however you must register in advance at the Cleveland clinic, which is being offered by DSHS. Texas National Guardsmen will help registrants in person at the Dayton event while DSHS personnel will assist at the Liberty and Cleveland clinics.
Please be sure to bring your driver’s license or identification card and be able to provide your Social Security Number and address, and a phone number or email address where you may be contacted to arrange a time for the second dose of the vaccine to be administered.
Both Moderna and Pfizer vaccines require a two-step process. In order to achieve maximum efficacy against the COVID-19 virus, you must receive the second dose within a certain number of days.
According to Crista Beasley-Adams, the entities involved in the vaccination clinics do not indicate in advance which of the vaccines will be administered until the day of the event.
The City of Liberty is assisting the Liberty County Office of Emergency Management and the National Guard with the clinic in Liberty.