Photo courtesy of Ochsner
People over the age of 70 and those on dialysis are now eligible to be vaccinated. The website of CovidVaccine.LA.gov offers a list of 107 pharmacies in 51 parishes that have the vaccine. State Health Officer Dr. Joe Kanter said unfortunately for this first week the number of doses is extremely limited.
“But each pharmacy is only getting 100 doses during this first week’s shipment. We simply took what we got from the Feds and divided up the best way that we could,” said Kanter.
Kanter said patients without an appointment will not be vaccinated and currently, each of the 107 pharmacies only received 100 doses of the vaccine, but more doses should be available in the coming weeks.
“They’ll be more doses coming in subsequent weeks and more pharmacies receiving. I think these are going to go quickly, it really is a very small amount compared to what the demand is, but it is what it is,” said Kanter.
Kanter said vaccines are being given in a tier system to those most likely to be exposed and those more likely to die or have severe complications from the virus and by doing so they hope to reduce hospital capacity.
“The hospitals now in the state have more COVID patients than they did at any point, going back all the way to the end of March beginning of April, and they are on track to eclipse that as well,” said Kanter.
Hospitalizations increased by 58 patients today for a total of 1,891.
Kanter said we should see the full effect of holiday gatherings in the next two weeks.
Click for a list of pharmacies https://ldh.la.gov/assets/docs/covid/Pharmacy_RTR_Master_V2.pdf
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