NEW ORLEANS — The city of New Orleans still has no plans to move forward with easing COVID-19 restrictions further, even as the number of people vaccinated in the city sits around twice that of the state at large.
Beau Tidwell, a spokesman for the city, said Tuesday that just under 42% of the city's residents had begun the vaccination process, with around 3/4 of them fully vaccinated.
Statewide, 1.1 million of Louisiana's 4.6 million residents have been fully vaccinated, out of 1.4 million who have received their first dose.
Tidwell said that the city did not have a specific criteria for loosening Phase 3 restrictions in the city, which limit gatherings and curb bar operations. And there has been no movement towards cutting restrictions over the past few weeks.
Earlier this month, Mayor LaToya Cantrell said it will be some time before her administration will even consider easement of the restrictions.
While not stating a firm number of vaccinations to loosen restrictions further, Cantrell mentioned that herd immunity is supposed to be achieved when 75 percent of a population is vaccinated.
If that is the number the city is aiming for, it could take a while. It's been more than three months since the first doses of the coronavirus vaccine began hitting arms in Louisiana, and it has only been in the past month that vaccines have become available to everybody over 16.
Although New Orleans is one of the vaccination leaders across the U.S., It could be months before the city reaches that level of vaccination.
"To get to where we're going to have additional easements of guidelines...we need to see more progress on the vaccines," Tidwell said. "There is no immediate plan for that."
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