Emma Freer is a senior reporter for Austonia, where she covers the local pandemic response, policy, Project Connect and homelessness. She previously worked for Community Impact Newspaper. A native Clevelander, she graduated from Columbia Journalism School in 2017 and the University of St. Andrews in 2016. Email: emma@austonia.com. Twitter: @freer_emma.
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The Texas Department of State Health Services will allocate 332,750 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to 212 providers this week, with the bulk assigned to hub providers that are focused on widespread community distribution events. Six of those providers are in Travis County.
With the latest allocation of 16,450 sent to Travis County this week, the county will have received 104,275 doses of the vaccine. Local public health officials estimate that there are 285,000 area residents who fall in the 1A and 1B priority groups, meaning that around 37% of them should have access to doses seven weeks into the rollout process.
Here's where the latest allotment is going:
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Austin may soon be home to a tech plant that would dwarf the Tesla Gigafactory in both investment and job creation.
Samsung Electronics Co. is considering starting construction on a $10 billion memory chip plant in Austin as soon as this year, Bloomberg reported Friday.
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With an extremely limited vaccine supply, Austin Public Health is now focusing its distribution events on individuals who are 65 years of age or older, public health officials said Friday.
"We have more than 129,000 of (people in this category)," APH Director Stephanie Hayden-Howard said Friday, adding Austin residents who do not fall into this demographic group to be patient.
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Amid the possibilities that Austin voters could reinstate the city's camping ban and the implementation of a statewide ban, Austin Mayor Steve Adler said the current plan is failing.
Austin City Council repealed the camping ban in 2019, after advocates said it criminalized homelessness. Adler told the Austin American-Statesman on Thursday that the approach "is not working," but added that going back to the previous ban also didn't address the city's homelessness issues.
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