Month: February 2021

Orange County will wait at least another two weeks before offering COVID-19 vaccine shots to educators, food service workers and others who are newly eligible under state guidelines, county Health Officer Dr. Clayton Chau said Tuesday. Feb. 9. The additional time will help the county get through a waiting list of people 65 and older who haven’t been vaccinated yet, Chau told the Orange County Board of Supervisors. So far, about 100,000 of Orange County’s seniors, plus most of the county’s health care workers who wanted shots, have been inoculated, Chau said – but those two groups together equal more than 700,000 people, and vaccine supplies continue to be limited. Chau said with the county getting only about 37,000 doses a week from the state, inviting more people to compete for the...

The City of Austin approved buying the Candlewood Suites in northwest Austin, which also sits partially in Williamson County. WILLIAMSON COUNTY, Texas — Williamson County commissioners gave the green light to their general counsel to start interviewing law firms on Tuesday, propelling the county toward a lawsuit against the City of Austin. County leaders hope the legal maneuver will halt the Austin City Council's efforts to operate the Candlewood Suites as temporary or permanent housing for the homeless. County Judge Bill Gravell said the county also plans to use every resource at the State...

At least 36 people may have developed a rare blood disorder, known as immune thrombocytopenia (ITP), after taking either Pfizer and BioNTech or Moderna's COVID-19 vaccines, according to a report by the New York Times.  The condition develops when the immune system attacks platelets, a blood component essential for clotting, or the cells that create them, for unknown reasons. DESPITE PANDEMIC LOCKDOWNS, SOME EXPERIENCE 'POST-TRAUMATIC GROWTH' The cases were reported to VAERS, the government’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, as of the end of January. However, the system relies on individuals to send in reports of their experiences to the CDC and FDA, and does not indicate whether vaccines actually caused the problems. Over 43 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administere...