A number of coronavirus vaccines look like they’re nearing completion and state officials are game-planning how to make sure you can get one as soon as they are available.
State Immunization Director Dr. Frank Welch said the first people to get a vaccine will be frontline healthcare workers who have contact with COVID patients, followed by nursing home employees, nursing home residents, and then the broad group defined as “essential workers”.
Welch said a vaccine could begin being administered to frontline healthcare workers at their workplace in Louisiana within days of it receiving FDA approval. Then for the general public, you’ll be able to get a shot first at designated healthcare facilities, then doctors’ offices, and finally later into the distribution process at the kinds of drive-through sites that do COVID testing.
Welch said there are also indications that everyone in the general public will have access to the vaccine by late-spring.
Many folks just won’t trust the vaccine but Welch says the best way to address those fears is to show people the trial data proving the vaccine is safe.
“Once we have that scientific data, which we don’t yet, then we are going to start to distribute that data, doctors and nurses are going to start getting the vaccine, and then they are going to start recommending it to their patients,” said Welch who also mentioned that a robust adverse event reporting system is in place that would alert the public should concerns be raised about any of the many coming vaccines.
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