Governor Abbott Says There Will Be No More Texas Shutdowns

More than 1 million Texans are expected to be vaccinated for COVID-19 by the end of the month as part of the largest vaccination campaign in U.S. history, Gov. Greg Abbott said publicly Thursday. The question of who gets them after healthcare workers and other first responders is still unclear. Abbott said he was confident there will be enough doses available for the general public by March, and to get more than one million Texans vaccinated over the next month.

Texas has received nearly 95,000 doses of Pfizer's vaccine through Wednesday with another 129,000 doses to be delivered Thursday for a total of more than 224,000 total doses so far, Abbott said. That number is expected to grow as the Food and Drug Administration approved a second vaccine from the drug maker Moderna today.

"This is going to increase, as I mentioned earlier, next week when we have not only the Pfizer vaccine, but the Moderna vaccine," Abbott said. "There will be multiple vaccines available to us by the time we get to March, and we will be providing far more doses of vaccines than what we currently have."

One thing that is clear, with the vaccine, the governor vowed that there will be no more shutdowns.

"The fact of the matter is, it's time to put behind us shutdowns. No more shutdowns. We need to focus on opening up businesses," Abbott said. "Every adult in Texas has the responsibility to follow the safe practices as we continue to work our way out of this. As we do that, we can contain COVID-19 while we continue the process of vaccinating Texans and continue to open up. People's lives have been crushed, and their pocketbooks and ability to pay rent and food on the table has been harmed because of the shutdowns. So no, we will not have any more shutdowns in Texas."

Abbott said he had not yet been vaccinated but planned to do so after front-line health care workers are inoculated.