When Louisiana earlier this week extended vaccine admission to anyone over the age of 16 with a long list of medical conditions, the state moved overnight to one of the most open states in the U.S. when it comes to who can get a chance.
It is estimated that nearly three out of four adults in Louisiana meet the broad category of “overweight” or “obese” that enables them to receive a coronavirus vaccine, and may be much more eligible due to other medical conditions such as cancer and ‘smoking’. under new rules released Tuesday.
Dr. Shantel Hebert-Magee, the newly appointed Regional Director Medical Director for the Department of Health in Louisiana, estimates that we, along with earlier admissibility arrangements that enable all people over the age of 65 and some other groups to stand a chance , a large coverage has 80% to 90% of our population. ‘
“A significant portion of our population has comorbidities,” she said.
The approach is more far-reaching than that of many states, which have taken more red tape into account by limiting the types of conditions or requiring people to have a certain age to qualify.
The push to get Louisians vaccinated against the coronavirus is aimed at getting people vaccinated as quickly as possible, while prioritizing the parent …
Louisiana, for example, is one of only three states in the country open to people as young as 16 with one of nearly two dozen conditions.
The state provides for conditions that, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, put people at increased risk for serious diseases, such as obesity and cancer, but also removes them from a second, broader list. This list includes conditions such as asthma, body mass index older than 25 or type 1 diabetes.
Many states pick and choose diseases from both lists, but do not include them all. Texas, for example, contains 11 of the 12 most dangerous conditions, but does not allow smoking. Ohio does not allow heart conditions or cancer, but it does allow people with Down syndrome and sickle cell disease to be vaccinated. Some states require two or more conditions for vaccination or limit the qualifications of conditions to older people.
And while a handful of states allow providers to decide whether a patient should be vaccinated, many others are much more restrictive. In New York, people over 60 have just been eligible this week, down from 65, although there are nonprofits and government workers a cut-off job.
“Louisiana throws a wider network than many states,” said Jennifer Kates, a health policy analyst and researcher at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.
Back in a room of about two football fields, Mary Francis sat in a wheelchair, her daughter by her side. Ahead, a gi …
Government John Bel Edwards said on Tuesday that the decision to extend the suitability came after a ‘slack’ appointment over the weekend and was taken with the aim of preventing hospitalizations and deaths as more transmissible variants gain ground.
“Our primary goal of establishing priorities for vaccination is to maintain hospital capacity and save lives. That is why we work with individuals with co-morbid health conditions that predict them to have a bad outcome, ”he said.
Government John Bel Edwards speaks at a press conference updating the state’s COVID-19 response on Tuesday, March 9, 2021 at the State Capitol in Baton Rouge. Edwards said people 16 years and older with certain health conditions are eligible to receive the coronavirus vaccine Tuesday, a dramatic expansion in Louisiana’s effort to overcome the pandemic. Sign language interpreter Sylvie Sullivan is in the background.
The new qualifications were developed taking into account essential workers, bearing in mind that the many conditions would qualify them. This is generally true, Kates said, but it is not true for everyone.
And some essential workers say they feel left out.
Marjeta Wolfe is a 21-year-old restaurant greeter in Jefferson Parish and a college student, where she is exposed to large groups of people indoors. She has a vocal cord condition and has been on a daily inhaler for eight years.
“My mom and I googled the ingredients,” she tried to see if her inhaler counted as a corticosteroid. But she does not make the cut.
Helen Woo, 49, is a registered dietitian working in a New Orleans pantry. She also does not qualify under the extended guidelines.
“I know people who lied or traveled to another country to get a vaccine,” Woo said. “I do not want to do that. I’m not going to pretend I’m sick or dress like an old lady so I can get my chance. ‘
When people aged 70 or older in Louisiana were eligible for the coronavirus vaccine in January, Phil Costa, a New Orleans resident, had a …
Both Woo and Wolfe say they do not want to bend or lie the rules and rather try their hand at finding “remaining” vaccines, but they are frustrated not to be admitted as essential workers.
“I feel that people like us who provide essential services and deal with the public should be given priority over people who work safely from home and do not interact with anyone,” Woo said.
The lack of focus on essential workers is something that epidemiologist Susan Hassig has seen unfold across the country.
“I would argue that you should do vaccination in the workplace, that we should have mobile units located in the French Quarter, with a high density of restaurant workers,” Hassig said. “They do not have much control over how they can be exposed.”
Mike Springborn, a health resources economist at the University of California, Davis, strikes a balance between vaccine distribution and disease risk and exposure.
“There are compromises everywhere,” he said, adding that in some cases the best way is to vaccinate vulnerable people directly, but in other circumstances it is more important to simply reduce the spread in the wider community.
In early February 2020, doctors and scientists submitted an auditorium to LSU’s medical school in New Orleans. Put shoulder to shoulder, …
One problem with that is that there is no good data on how well the vaccine transmission occurs. Another problem is that some people may not realize they have one of the qualifications.
Brenda Rainbolt’s family encouraged her to mark the smoking box to qualify since she smoked 20 years ago, but the 64-year-old felt it was a lie – plus she had to enter her insurance information and did not want that it would affect her coverage.
“I do not feel comfortable indicating the box when there is smoke,” Rainbolt said. She works in a public library and lives in Shreveport with her son, a high school history teacher and soccer coach, and daughter-in-law, an ICU. nurse on the COVID floor. ‘My non-smoker is in my health insurance. And the rest does not fit at all. ”
Only when she talks to a reporter and types her weight and height into a BMI calculator does she realize that she has a BMI of 25.6 above the threshold.
“If an individual does not define him that way, or if they are not diagnosed or appear uncomfortable, they are unlikely to sit in the group,” Kates said.
Hassig is a few decimal points of the required BMI or a medical condition not listed.
“I would tell them to put on a subject and vaccinate,” Hassig said.