Residents in the other southeastern municipalities of New Orleans and Louisiana are receiving coronavirus vaccines at a faster rate than in the rest of the state, leading to a shift in how public health officials plan to distribute future doses.
About 7.4% of New Orleans residents received at least one shot, according to data released by the Louisiana Department of Health on Friday. This is the highest percentage of the population in all nine public health regions in the state, and more than double the rate in the Lake Charles area, where only 3.1% of the people got a chance.
Baton Rouge, 81-year-old Gwyn Baddley, gets her first admission of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine by Baton Rouge General Medical Center LPN Constance Lara, right, at the newly dedicated vaccine clinic in his Center for Health, Thursday, January 21st. , 2021. BRG opened the new clinic on Monday of this week in Summa Ave 9001 on its Bluebonnet campus. In combination with other sites, the clinic will enable the hospital to vaccinate thousands of people each week.
In the Baton Rouge area, as well as on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, about 6% of residents received at least one dose. In the area around Lafayette, 4.6% of people received a vaccine.
Much of the difference is likely due to a higher concentration of hospitals and other health care services in New Orleans and other cities.
COVID-19 Vaccination Progress Map
The New Orleans region has about 3,300 hospital beds, which is about 1,000 more than the next highest region, and is also home to Ochsner Health and LCMC Health, two of the state’s largest hospital operators. Doctors, nurses and other health professionals were given priority during the first weeks of vaccination.
Yet the data has led government officials to change how they plan to send vaccines to ensure supplies that are still hard to come by get people across the state.
Dr. Joe Kanter, the state health officer, said the health department will start sending doses to each of the state’s nine health areas based on population.
Dr. Joe Kanter, head of the state’s coronavirus response at La Dept. of Health’s Office of Public Health, speaks during the press conference of Governor John Bel Edwards to update the COVID-19 response of the state to the Governor on Tuesday, January 12, 2021. Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. Edwards announced that the state is moving another four weeks of phase 2 coronavirus restrictions due to the hold on the virus.
“If there are inequalities in what the regions receive, we will address them over the next few weeks,” Kanter said. “We all need to see these contradictions less and less every week.”
Aly Neel, a spokeswoman for the Louisiana Department of Health, said the per capita allocation model would take time to implement, but that the state would begin the shift this week.
The move comes because coronavirus cases in Louisiana remain near overall highs and demand for the two federally authorized vaccines is supplying higher. On Monday, the state confirmed 1,992 new cases and 26 new deaths due to COVID-19. The numbers reflect two days of data.
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In recent days, residents over the age of 70 – the group currently eligible to receive vaccinations with health workers – have waited a long time and canceled appointments, and governments John Bel Edwards has announced that Louisiana will receive far fewer doses in the coming weeks as federal officials had initially indicated.
In the first weeks of the state’s vaccination effort that began in mid-December, the state sent vaccines to hospitals based on how many staff members worked at each facility.
At that time, vaccines were restricted to hospital workers and those who lived or worked at long-term care facilities, such as nursing homes, where distribution was handled by the federal government via Walgreens and CVS.
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After Kanter expanded on January 4 for more health workers and people 70 years and older, Kanter said the state is still limited to the amount of vaccines the vaccine has sent.
Now that the state has a list of 1,800 providers, he said Louisiana has enough hospitals, pharmacies and other facilities to distribute the vaccine doses per population. He noted that the federal government has largely distributed vaccines on a per capita basis to states.
The new method of deciding where vaccines should be sent is expected to advance regions that have been lagging behind so far. But it could also exacerbate the cancellation of appointments at some of the larger health systems in New Orleans and other areas that have received larger doses so far.
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Ochsner Health, the state’s largest health institution, received only about 1,950 first doses this week on its main campus in Jefferson Parish, according to Ochsner CEO Warner Thomas. The week of Jan. 4 – the first time people over the age of 70 had access to the vaccine in Louisiana – Jefferson Parish facility in Ochsner received at least 9,450 doses, according to health department figures.
It was not clear on Monday to what extent the lower number of doses was the result of the new allocation model.
Neel said Ochsner is receiving another vaccine, but we have introduced a new per capita award model. “She added that the state works every week to get a fairer coverage.”
“It’s not perfect, but it’s getting better and will keep getting better,” Neel said. ‘It’s difficult, we know, and not ideal for planning, but we appreciate the suppliers who understand that none of us can make assumptions or guarantees about future awards. We are all in this together. ”
Governor John Bel Edwards speaks during his press conference updating the state’s COVID-19 response on Tuesday, January 12, 2021 at the Governors’ Office for Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. Edwards announced that the state is moving another four weeks of phase 2 coronavirus restrictions due to the hold on the state.
Edwards said last week he expects the state to receive about 58,000 doses a week for the next month or longer.
After planning more than 100,000 vaccination appointments over a few weeks, Ochsner canceled about 21,000 appointments, Thomas told a news conference Monday, referring to issues.
Kanter attributed some of the cancellations among suppliers to optimism after the Trump administration’s announcement on January 12 that it would no longer withhold the second doses. But the windfall never materialized after states quickly learned that the previous government did not have a stockpile to send out.
Ronald Romano, who turns 70 within a few days, adds his name to the list to receive a COVID-19 vaccination at Broad Avenue Pharmacy in N. Broad Street in New Orleans on Monday, January 4, 2021. (Photo by Chris Granger | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
Thomas said he has no insight into how many doses are available to Ochsner in the coming weeks, or how the state’s new allocation model will affect its hospital system. Ochsner places ‘orders’ for vaccine doses every Monday and finds out how much it will receive on Fridays, he said.
Suppliers fill out request forms each week and send them to the state. The form tells providers to wait to plan the persons for vaccinations until the request is approved.
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Kanter said the state largely uses such request forms to get an idea of how many vaccines each provider can handle. But the state currently has far fewer doses available than providers charge.
“Just one-on-one hospitals requested 110,000 doses last week,” Kanter said, referring to a designation of usually larger hospitals with emergency departments. “As a state, we had 58,000 to 59,000 doses.”
According to state data, during the first five weeks of vaccine distribution, Level 1 hospitals received the bulk of the vaccine doses, followed by the federal program for nursing homes, independent pharmacies, related health facilities, and chain pharmacies.
As of Sunday, Louisiana was 13th in the country, including the District of Columbia, in the number of doses administered per capita, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The state has so far administered 61% of the doses, which was also good for the 13th in the US