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North Texas Doctor Says Demand For COVID-19 Vaccine Is Taking A Toll On His Office

IRVING (CBSDFW.COM) - As COVID-19 cases continue to surge in North Texas, there's major demand for the vaccine.

Dr. Charles Powell calls it a blessing and a curse.

"People are super excited," he said "They see a means to an end, but just to put it in perspective, Healthcare Associates of Texas has 100,000 people we take care of a year -- yet we only received 2,100 doses of vaccine."

This week, the information was made public on the Texas Department of State Health Services' website which shows vaccine providers that have received at least some of their shipments. Since then, the phone has been ringing off the hook. People looking to secure appointments.

So far, Powell's staff have been vaccinated and now, they're getting to the wait list they started months ago with 40,000 people on it.

"So what we're telling everybody is be patient, understand that doctors offices that got it have a lot of patients that have signed up previously for it," he said. "We're working to get anybody that is a healthcare worker - anybody that's in Phase 1A and 1B - we're working to get them through. This is going to take until October to get the people that need to be immunized immunized."

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