Houston's top health leaders worry about loosening COVID-19 restrictions as more infectious variants spread

HOUSTON - As the mask mandate ends, the race to administer more vaccines intensifies. 

According to DSHS, only about nine percent of all Texans have been fully vaccinated.

On Wednesday, Houston’s top health experts provided an update on inoculations locally.

There's been progress with three COVID-19 vaccines approved and providers getting more of them.

"Just in the last month, we've gone from 90,000 vaccinations a week to up to now we're over 232,000," said Bill McKeon, President and CEO, Texas Medical Center.

FEMA's vaccination site at NRG Park is now going into the third week and more than 82,000 vaccines have been administered there. 

But McKeon and other experts worry inoculations won't outpace the spread of the disease.

Their top concern: more infectious variants of the virus are circulating locally.

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"We still have 13 percent positivity rate right now in the city and county level, so there's a lot of disease that's still out there," he added. "And, actually much more infectious."

"We've noted that we've got up to 19 percent of the virus that has been found in the waste water does have the mutation that's consistent with the UK variant," said Dr. David Persse with Houston Public Health. 

They also note after steadily declining postivity rates since early January, in about the last three weeks, that decline has stopped.

"The numbers are staying the same and they are more than twice what they were before the current surge occurred," said Dr. Esmaeil Porsa, President and CEO of Harris Health System.

They worry how these trends will be impacted by Governor Greg Abbott's decision to end the statewide mask mandate.

"This is really the time for people to hunker down and realize that we cannot afford another surge on top of where we are, at the baseline, right now," urged Porsa.

They also urge Texans to get whatever vaccine becomes available to them first. By stopping the virus from spreading, it gives it less opporutnity to mutate.

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"At the end of the day, all three vaccines are very, very effective at keeping you from getting sick enough to require hospitalization and keeping you alive," concluded Persse.

Harris County Public Health saying they're in talks with FEMA to extend the program at beyond six weeks as orginally planned.