TEXAS — Texas has reached and surpassed a COVID-19 vaccine milestone. The Texas Department of State Health Services reports 11,033,564 Texans are now fully vaccinated.
That represents more than a third of the state’s nearly 30 million residents.
The milestone comes as mass vaccination sites in Texas have all but disappeared. There are still numerous pop-up vaccination clinics available, however, and vaccines remain widely available at pharmacies and other medical facilities.
The state additionally reports that 13,271,737 Texans have received at least one vaccine dose and a total of 23,370,504 vaccine doses have been administered.
New cases of COVID-19 remain low in Texas. DSHS on Monday reported just 278 new confirmed cases of the virus, 91 new probable cases and one new fatality attributed to COVID-19.
The state reports 1,599 Texans remain hospitalized with the virus.
Despite the accomplishment Texas still lags somewhat. According to the Associated Press, just eight states — Alabama, Arkansas, Hawaii, Missouri, Nevada, Texas, Utah and Wyoming — have seen their seven-day rolling averages for infection rates rise from two weeks earlier, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
All of them except Hawaii have recorded vaccination rates that are lower than the U.S. average of 43% fully vaccinated, according to the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The 10 states with the fewest new cases per capita over that time frame all have fully vaccinated rates above the national average.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.