After a slow start to vaccinations with COVID-19, Louisiana on Monday unveiled a list of more than 100 pharmacies that will administer small amounts of the vaccine to the elderly and other priority groups this week.
The state has only 10,500 doses of Moderna’s vaccine to deliver to pharmacies, and north of 640,000 people are eligible to receive it immediately. This means that demand is likely to be greater than supply.
The pharmacies now part of the state’s mass vaccination effort cover 51 congregations, including five in Baton Rouge, six in New Orleans and one in Lafayette. Forty-five chains such as Walgreens and Albertsons, along with 62 independent pharmacies and pharmacies linked to major health systems such as Ochsner, were included.
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Government officials say people will not be able to show up at the pharmacies without an appointment to be vaccinated. LDH spokesperson Aly Neel said pharmacies should be able to detect every dose that needs to be administered and not form long lines during a pandemic. Patients should go to the pharmacies to make appointments.
See a map of the pharmacies here.
The pharmacies will only receive about 100 doses in the first group, and the Department of Health has already reported that telephone lines have been tied up at pharmacies due to interest in the vaccine.
“With this first very limited vaccine award, we will not be able to vaccinate everyone this week,” Neel said.
Neel added that not all pharmacies will get the vaccine immediately, but it will be shipped this week.
Government John Bel Edwards announced last week that the state’s vaccination program – hitherto limited to hospitals and long-term care facilities such as nursing homes – will expand to about 100 pharmacies. He also announced the following priority groups outside Phase 1A.
“The number of vaccine doses we will receive next week is very limited,” Edwards told a New Year’s Eve press conference. “But it’s enough to get going to test the systems, to work out the kinks and so on. And over time, we expect the number of doses to increase dramatically. If that happens, we want everything ready to be so effective. be as we can be to administer and distribute these vaccines. ”
He added that people in phase 1A would also be eligible to get vaccinations through the pharmacies.
Appointments are required.
The first part of Phase 1B, called Tier 1, can make appointments from this week to be vaccinated at pharmacies. This includes people 70 years and older, end-of-life kidney disease staff and patients, outpatients and outpatients, home agencies and workers and schools of related health students, residents and staff.
The next phase of Phase 1B, which is not yet eligible, includes a number of other workers, including essential government response, ‘legal staff’, correctional officers, K-12 school and day care workers, postal workers, public transport and grocery store workers, among other. About 318,750 people will be eligible in the group. Federal judges, state district judges, and judges of the Louisiana Supreme Court have all written letters to the governor’s administration to prioritize.
The CDC’s advisory panel issued relatively broad federal recommendations for the priority groups in December, saying states should extend the Phase 1B vaccine to people aged 75 and over and essential workers such as first responders, correctional officers, food and agriculture workers, postal workers, the public transport, workers in grocery stores, manufacturing and teachers. Phase 1C should include people 65 and older, people with underlying medical conditions and more essential workers.
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Edwards said last week he would prioritize people with underlying health conditions rather than federal recommendations, but did not spell out the details. A larger portion of Louisiana’s population has underlying health conditions than other states, which complicates the prospect, given the early supply of vaccines.
In the first two weeks of vaccinations, Louisiana administered only 45,289 doses of COVID-19 vaccine, far from all the doses received. The state received 79,000 doses of Pfizer’s vaccine in the first two weeks. It is sent to hospitals because they can store it in the extremely cold temperature, and is mostly used to vaccinate health workers.
“I certainly do not pretend to be ecstatic about the number of people we could have vaccinated,” Edwards said. “Nobody is happy with where we are at the moment, and it continues to improve.”
By the end of this week, Louisiana expects to have received more than 210,000 doses of vaccines, including 56,200 for nursing homes and other long-term care facilities through a federal program. The state releases the number of vaccines administered on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
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