FORT WORTH, Texas — The COVID-19 vaccination records of at least 9.6 million Texans will be destroyed five years after the statewide public health disaster ends, unless state officials manage to contact all vaccine recipients and ask whether they want the records preserved.
“The groups of people that are going to be really, really affected are those marginalized communities that already have a difficult time accessing vaccines,” said Rekha Lakshmanan, the chief strategy officer for The Immunization Partnership.
The unusual situation is a result of state law. In most states, when a patient receives a vaccine, that information is shared with the state’s vaccine registry unless a patient opts out. But in Texas the situation is flipped: Vaccine information is automatically not stored in the state’s vaccine registry, unless the person receiving the vaccine signs paperwork to consent to sharing that information.
