BATON ROUGE, La. — Every Louisiana resident age 16 and above can receive a COVID vaccine, regardless of their health condition, starting Monday, March 29, Governor John Bel Edwards announced.
Edwards said the increase in the supply of the vaccine coming into the state is allowing the move.
“Since the beginning of the vaccine process, our weekly allocations from the federal government have more the doubled and that is why we feel confident that we’re ready for this next step,” said Governor John Bel Edwards.
Next week, 149-thousand first doses of the vaccine will arrive in Louisiana. That’s about 37-thousand more doses than this week.
Just for perspective, that’s enough to vaccinate the populations of Terrebonne, St.James, St. John, And St. Charles Parishes combined.
"The president set a goal of May 1 to have all adults eligible," Edwards said. "I thought we could beat that goal. I didn't realize we would get there quite this soon.
Still, Dr. Kanter said declining COVID case numbers in Louisiana have stalled. Cases are increasing in the Lake Charles area, and about three percent are the new, contagious UK variant.
“Folks need to know that this is our time,” said Dr. Joe Kanter.
According to CDC data, Louisiana’s vaccine efforts rank among the middle of US states and territories, but better than our neighbors.
“So this is a warning sign to us right now that we’ve gotta double down our efforts, both in mitigating measures, masking and distancing and in getting the vaccine out as quickly and equitably as possible,” said Kanter.
Edwards said that next week the state will receive 26,000 additional doses of vaccine from Johnson and Johnson and 14,000 additional Pfizer shots.
Texas, Arkansas, and Mississippi are among the bottom eight states for vaccine rollout. Each have less than 34-thousand doses administered per 100-thousand people.
“Everyone has a role to play now, and it’s getting vaccinated,” said Governor Edwards.
Young residents ages 16 and 17 will have to receive the Pfizer vaccine. Residents 18 years of age or older are eligible to receive any of the currently-available vaccines.
