NEW ORLEANS — While there's preparation and anticipation for mass COVID-19 vaccination sites in the metro area, some small, independently owned pharmacies have been steadily vaccinating people for almost two months now. At a quiet strip of New Orleans East, just off Chef Highway is Michoud Pharmacy.
Inside your run-of-the-mill refrigerator, are potential lifesavers and game changers: boxes of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. Paul Vo is the owner and manager. He says getting people vaccinated against COVID-is their daily goal.
“We try to do at least 20-30 vaccines per day,” said Vo.
Their vaccine wait list stands around 1,200. On Tuesday, that list got a bit smaller. Phuc Nguyen came in for his second shot of the Moderna vaccine. Nguyen is a health care worker and lives just five minutes from the pharmacy.
“I heard they were giving the shots. I gave them a call, they said they were giving them out to health care workers so, I went ahead scheduled, and they had one for me,” said Nguyen.
That sounds simple and streamlined, but Vo said that certainly wasn’t the case when the Louisiana Department of Health selected his pharmacy in the initial rollout of the vaccines.
“Oh man, that was crazy, our phone was ringing every second. Everyone was trying to get on our list to try and get a dose. It’s been crazy but we knew what we signed up for and we’re just doing our best,” said Vo.
Since January, Vo said their small pharmacy has vaccinated about 1,000 people. Many of them came from New Orleans East. Outside of larger venues and hospital settings, pharmacies are a key part of the vaccination campaign.
The part of New Orleans East where the pharmacy is located is home to many first-generation Vietnamese immigrants. The language barrier can be a real issue when it comes to getting information about COVID vaccines.
It’s one reason why a community-based pharmacy like Michoud Pharmacy is so important. On Tuesday afternoon, an older Vietnamese-American couple came in for their second dose of vaccines. Vo believes the pharmacy’s cultural ties to the neighborhood can put people like them at ease.
“A lot of patients with the language barrier, they may not understand how to get on the internet to schedule an appointment or get on the waitlist on our website. We do our best to call our patients and put them on our appointment book accordingly,” said Paul Vo.
According to the National Community Pharmacists Association, about 1 in 3 pharmacies in the U.S. are independently owned. In the ongoing mission to vaccinate Americans, boutique pharmacies like Paul Vo’s may be proof that bigger isn’t always better.
