This browser does not support the Video element.
Houston doctor critical of COVID-19 vaccine rollout
FOX 26's Tiffany Justice spoke with Dr. Peter Hotez following an alert that was sent out to Harris County residents urging them to cancel their New Year's Eve plans due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
HOUSTON - As Covid-19 cases are surging, Harris County officials are asking people to cancel New Year’s Eve plans.
FOX 26 also spoke with Dr. Peter Hotez with Baylor College of Medicine Wednesday. He has been very vocal in what he is calling a slow timeline to administer vaccines.
County and city officials asking people to not celebrate with anyone outside of your household. Protect yourself, your family and healthcare workers.
Covid-19 testing lines around the city have been long but what Dr. Peter Hotez, a top Houston-area doctor wishes, were vaccine lines as well. He says the federal government has really dropped the ball.
"The U.S has not only dropped the ball in having a vaccine, but they dropped the ball on having a federal plan to deal with Covid-19," said Hotez.
SIGN UP FOR FOX 26 HOUSTON EMAIL ALERTS
Hotez make strong comments on Twitter Wednesday saying quote, "Maybe I'm too subtle. So here it goes: 1. In 2020 we royally messed up COVID-19 control."
He goes on to say, "by failing, we backed ourselves into a corner 3. Our last hope is to now vaccinate our way out of this."
And he says the state of Texas still has a lot of work to do, saying if we want 80% of the population to be vaccinated by the middle of next year, we will need to vaccinate almost one million Texas a week.
RELATED: The number of Coronavirus COVID-19 cases, deaths, recoveries in greater Houston area
And the infrastructure is not there.
"I don’t see this idea of allow these big pharmacy chains as good as they are to take lead," said Hotez. "I don’t see how they are going to band together and vaccinate a million Texans a week."
Hotez says what needs to be done is to think bigger.
"We are probably going to be looking creating vaccination hubs, for example at NRG stadium," said Hotez.
FOR THE LATEST NEWS UPDATES, DOWNLOAD THE FOX 26 NEWS APP
Once a vaccine is widely available you can use vaccinefinder.org (http://vaccinefinder.org/) to find the nearest location to you. It was developed by Harvard Medical School and the CDC.