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Collin County eagerly awaits supplies for COVID-19 vaccine mega center

Just a little prick.

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Collin County is ready and waiting to set up a COVID-19 vaccine mega-site, all they need now are some supplies.

According to a release, the Collin County Commissioners court voted unanimously on January 11 to contract with a private company, Curative Medical Associates to set up vaccination mega-sites — "as soon as the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) provides COVID-19 vaccine supplies in larger volumes to the county."

Curative will be responsible for the mega-site locations and mobile clinics. The company has already been running large-scale COVID-19 testing operations since spring 2020, and is totally set up to administer publicly allotted doses of the vaccine under the guidelines set by the U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) and vaccine manufacturers.

During the meeting, Curative representatives told court members that they were capable of delivering up to 6,000 doses per day for each mega-site. They're capable of administering both Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.

In late December, Collin County received an initial shipment of 1,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine from DSHS, which they have already administered.

According to DSHS, during the week of January 11, Texas will direct most COVID-19 vaccines received to large sites or hubs around the state to vaccinate more than 100,000 people. But they still have a limited supply of the vaccine.

In partnership with cities and towns across Collin County, the county set up a vaccine wait list on January 8 that grew to more than 83,000 by January 11.

Cities and towns currently partnering with Collin County for vaccine registration and distribution, include: Allen, Anna, Blue Ridge, Celina, Fairview, Farmersville, Frisco, Josephine, Lavon, Lowry Crossing, Lucas, McKinney, Melissa, Murphy, Nevada, New Hope, Parker, Plano, Princeton, Prosper, Richardson, Sachse, Saint Paul, Weston, Wylie, and Collin College.

Curative will utilize that countywide vaccine wait list to notify residents of mega-site or mobile clinic locations and times — just as soon as the state makes supplies available.

Dallas County set up a mega-site in Fair Park on January 11, where they'll eventually vaccinate about 2,000 people per day.

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TALL TALES

Missing giraffe turns into Texas Hill Country's tallest mystery

Real Country Animal Rescue/ Facebook

Where can Gracie be?

UPDATE 6-26-2026: Gracie has been found about four miles south of the Cedar Hollow Ranch, according to a Facebook update from Real County Animal Rescue. Ranch manager Vic Jones has assembled a team to safely bring the wandering giraffe home.

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A giraffe named Gracie is missing in Texas, and the search for her has become a tall order.

Gracie, who is about 3 years old, has been missing for nearly two weeks after escaping her enclosure at Cedar Hollow Ranch in the Texas Hill Country, said Vic Jones, who owns the remote property about 100 miles west of San Antonio. He said Wednesday, June 24 that Gracie had wandered into a part of the privately owned preserve that other giraffes previously avoided.

Jones said he has sent up helicopters to look for Gracie, a few sightings have trickled in, and a $5,000 reward is on the table.

But the giraffe, which stands roughly the height of a tree, hasn't turned up.

“She wound up going up and feeding in an area on the hillside and the rocky ledges that none of the other giraffes had ever gone on before,” Jones said. “And when she came down off of there, she came down on the wrong side of the gate.”

The ranch is in rural Real County, where its roughly 2,700 residents were put on alert to be on the lookout for a missing giraffe. Jones said the search area is extremely remote, and the likelihood of Gracie encountering any humans is low.

“People are not in danger of her because she’s not around people,” Jones said. 'She’s out in very, very rough, heavily wooded lands."

The Texas Hill Country has one of the largest concentrations of exotic captive animals in the country. Real County Sheriff Nathan Johnson said the mild climate and rugged terrain seems to serve as a good stand-in for most of the animals' native African environments.

He rattled off a list of animals that have gone missing over the years, especially after floods, but said this was his first giraffe.

“I’ve had wildebeests, I've had water buffalo, I've had monkeys, I’ve had zebras, all go missing,” Johnson said. “Sometimes we recover them, and sometimes we don’t.”

While the middle of Texas is not a giraffe's native environment, Jones said Gracie should be able to find plenty of leaves and other vegetation to eat. He said other animals were not likely to bother her.

Jones said he initially had helicopters searching an area of about 7,500 acres (3,000 hectares) with no luck. A few days later, there was a report that Gracie was spotted to the south.

But by the time they could search the area, Jones said, she was already gone.

“We're always two three days late for where the information is coming from, so that makes it tough,” Jones said.

hill country giraffes animals