Louisiana nearly doubled the number of pharmacies and other vendors administering vaccines to elderly patients across the state as officials rush to catch up with skyrocketing demand from patients over 70.
After delivering 100 vaccine doses each to 107 pharmacies last week, the Louisiana Department of Health said Monday it would send more doses to those pharmacies and 102 more this week. A total of 209 providers will receive doses in all 64 parishes, the agency said, most of them pharmacies. They include 87 chain pharmacies, 93 independent pharmacies, 20 federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) and 9 care centers.
Pharmacies received a total of only 10,500 doses in the past week. Doses from various sources will be available this week. Some will ship directly from Moderna, some will come from a surplus with the state distributor, and some clinics will make their additional doses available to the public. Monday morning it was not immediately clear how many doses would be available at the locations.
View a list of providers offering vaccines to the elderly and health professionals. Several hospitals that have also begun to offer vaccines to people in the Phase 1B priority group have not been included in this list.
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The health department has told patients not to arrive at sites without an appointment expecting to be vaccinated, advising them to call or book an appointment on the website instead.
The agency also said in a new release that “participating providers must make vaccines available to anyone who qualifies. Failure to do so will inform future distribution decisions.”
Thousands of additional doses of COVID-19 vaccines will be distributed to pharmacies across the state next week, with Governor John Bel Edwards promising to …
After seeing vaccinations in hospitals in the early weeks of the state effort, Governor John Bel Edwards announced on New Year’s Eve that he was expanding vaccinations to the next stage beyond nursing homes and hospital staff. That gave people over 70 and a list of other health professionals the chance to get vaccinated.
The current Phase 1B priority group for the vaccine provides immunizations to people 70 years of age and older, as well as staff and patients in the end-stage renal disease facility, outpatient and outpatient health workers, home care patients and employees, and schools of allied health students, residents and staff.
With vaccinations lagging three weeks after the state’s effort, the Louisiana health agency this week ordered hospitals to begin vaccinating the …
While many hospital workers have hesitated to get the vaccine immediately, demand from elderly patients immediately overwhelmed pharmacies, which put thousands of names on waiting lists last week.
At the same time, hospitals began to shift their focus – and their thousands of unused doses – to older patients. Ochsner Health System said Friday it had scheduled 82,922 COVID-19 vaccine appointments for the next five weeks, including elderly patients and health professionals. These include their second doses. Ochsner had taken 30,324 of its 61,575 doses as of last week, but said it was ramping up immunizations.
With Louisiana receiving COVID-19 vaccines every week, the Department of Health is turning its attention to a critical part of achieving …
Aly Neel, a spokesman for the Louisiana Department of Health, said that just because the 107 pharmacies that received doses last week are being restocked this week, it does not guarantee they will continue to receive doses in the future.
“The biggest limiting factor is the amount of vaccine available to us,” she said.
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