Governor: Demand for vaccine outstrips supply

A race is on in the battle against COVID-19.
As a new and more easily spread coronavirus variant appears in Louisiana, officials are trying to speed up the vaccinations that could end the pandemic for good.
But slow vaccine deliveries are hampering that effort, Gov. John Bel Edwards said at a press conference Friday.
“The limiting factor for us,” Edwards said, “as it is for every state, is the supply of doses being allocated to us on a weekly basis. We’ve basically been flat for the last four weeks.”
The COVID-19 situation in Louisiana is a jumble of good news and bad.
Statistics show signs that the third surge of coronavirus cases is beginning to level off. The number of COVID-positive people in Louisiana hospitals, which reached a pandemic peak of 2,069 Jan. 7, fell to 1,671 Sunday, according to the Louisiana Office of Public Health. Hospitalizations have decreased by more than 150 in the last four days.
More than 301,000 doses of vaccine have been administered in Louisiana, the 10th-best rate per 100,000 residents in the country.
But the mutated form of COVID-19 known as the UK variant has been confirmed in one Louisiana case, and Dr. Joseph Kanter said Friday that he’s expecting more. The variant is believed to be no more dangerous than the COVID-19 virus that has been around all year, but it may be 50% more transmissible.
Modeling indicates the variant could be the dominant form of the coronavirus by early March, Edwards said. And that means more cases and more deaths.
Louisiana is expecting delivery of 29,250 doses of the Pfizer vaccine and 28,900 doses of the Moderna vaccine this week. Those numbers have been roughly unchanged for a month, and Edwards said he’s been told to expect about the same number of weekly deliveries for the next four or five weeks.
Edwards takes part in a weekly conference call with other governors, and they all want more.
“We want more vaccine as soon as we can possibly get it, and we want more lead time to know how many doses we’re going to get,” Edwards said.
The state gets an estimate on Tuesdays of how many doses will be delivered the following week. Public health officials get a firm number on Thursdays. Deliveries happen sometime between Monday and Wednesday, depending on the source.
That puts a heavy burden on Louisiana’s network of 1,800 public and private providers, about 300 of whom are performing vaccinations now.
The providers, part of one of the largest delivery networks in the country, “have really stepped up,” Kanter said.
The relatively small number of deliveries prevents Louisiana from conducting mass vaccination events, Edwards said. Such events would require public health officials to stockpile vaccine, slowing other efforts to inoculate people who are at the greatest risk of COVID infection.
President Joe Biden has pledged that 100 million people will be vaccinated in his first 100 days in office.
Kanter also announced other developments:
—Louisiana is embracing a phone app called COVID Defense that will alert participants when they’re near another program participant who has tested positive for COVID. The app is free and does not track or collect personal information, Kanter said.
—The Office of Public Health dashboard at https://ldh.la.gov/Coronavirus/ will now include demographic information about the people who are being vaccinated, including age, race and location.
The disproportionate impact of COVID on Louisiana minorities has been a source of concern since the pandemic emerged. In St. Mary Parish, the 107 confirmed or probable COVID deaths are split about equally between blacks and whites, even though African Americans make up about 32% of the population.
The state government appointed a health equity task force early in the pandemic, and Biden has announced that the federal government will follow suit.