AUSTIN, Texas — President Joe Biden announced Tuesday that there should be enough COVID-19 vaccines for all adult Americans by the end of May.
However, that news is coupled with the fact that most Texans have not received a vaccine, while many who are qualified still struggle to even get an appointment.
"The problems have been largely in part the result of the distribution of enough supply," said Don Kettl, the Sid Richardson Professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.
Kettl broke down a few of the issues Texas is facing when it comes to getting the shots into people's arms.
He pointed to February's winter storms that "pretty much shut down the vaccine process" as just one of the issues Texas has faced.
"But also because we've got a signup process that's extraordinarily complicated to try to master and to try to navigate," Kettl said. "And that's one of the big problems that we have to try to address in the weeks ahead."
At this point, Kettl said we simply just don't have enough vaccine.
"And as we get more of the vaccine produced and more of it distributed, some of that problem is going to be going away," he said, saying the second problem is a signup process that is too complicated.
"And then the third [problem] is trying to make sure that people who don't have easy internet access, who maybe are not quite as handy with a computer, who don't have easy transportation to vaccine hubs, are not left out in the cold," Kettl said. "And so, it's going to take a careful strategy of making sure that we reach some of the folks who live in those neighborhoods as well. So, it's a complicated system, a complicated process. We have the ability to be able to solve it, but it's going to require focus on all three fronts of that war if we're going to be successful."
Even with President Biden's announcement, Kettl said earlier this week that we are still months away from enough supply for everyone who wants a vaccine to be able to get one.
"Because the process of setting up the distribution sites, of making sure that people can sign up, those issues and problems are going to take still quite a while," Kettl said. "We're still probably looking at something close to mid-fall to late-fall before it's likely that everybody who wants the vaccine will be able to get it."
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