Dallas Area Meals On Wheels Clients Get COVID-19 Vaccine Home-Delivered

DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - Every vaccine, a victory.

That's the mindset as a plan to provide at-home COVID-19 vaccinations relaunched in Dallas on Monday, April 19.

The effort is a partnership between the City of Dallas and the Visiting Nurse Association of Texas, which runs the Meals on Wheels program.

Meals on Wheels is an everyday lifeline for the homebound and disabled, but now they're getting a lot more than a hot lunch.

They're getting the COVID-19 vaccine delivered.

"These are the clients from Meals on Wheels that are most likely not going to be able to go out to one of the megacenters, or a clinic, or even a pharmacy," says Chris Culak, with VNA Texas. "Of course, last week we were going to do this, we were going to start with Johnson & Johnson. But because of the pause, we kind of retooled and we pulled Moderna instead and we are going to come out and give people the vaccine when we can."

Dallas Fire-Rescue paramedics administer the life-saving doses. They say it feels good to be working towards prevention.

"We're doing our part," one responded while returning to a client's home to do the follow up check after 15 minutes. "That's all we can do, right?"

According to the Visiting Nurse Association, roughly 300 clients in Dallas have requested the in-home vaccinations.

The Dallas effort builds on a successful trial run in southern Dallas County suburbs earlier this year: bringing vaccines to the most isolated, and least able to access the vaccines.

"Every one of them are telling us stories of how they haven't left their homes in a year, they can't see their family or friends or can't really go out and interact in the public," says Culak, "and now that they're getting their vaccine, they'll have that opportunity to do that."

Organizers expect to have administered the first round of vaccine doses within the next week.

"Every time we give even one more person the vaccine," says Culak, "that just gets the entire community closer to being healthier."