La. hopes to get vaccine to the hard to reach

Sleeves Up vaccination events are planned throughout Louisiana this weekend as public health officials target people who, for whatever reason, have put off inoculating themselves against COVID-19.
The next Sleeves Up event in St. Mary Parish will be 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday, May 8, at the Cypress Bayou Casino Pavilion, 832 Martin Luther King in Charenton.
Call the Louisiana vaccine hotline at 855-453-0774 to schedule an appointment or visit covidvacinne.la.gov.
The state’s latest push for vaccination comes as COVID-19 statistics are showing a small uptick in Louisiana and about a third of new Louisiana cases result from the UK variant, Gov. John Bel Edwards and Public Health Officer Dr. Joe Kanter said at a press conference Thursday.
The UK variant hasn’t yet become the dominant form of the virus in Louisiana, which modeling indicated might happen as early as March. No confirmed cases of the Brazilian or South African variants have been confirmed in Louisiana.
But the number of COVID-positive people in hospitals grew slightly to 334 Thursday, and 41 of them were on ventilators.
The success of a mass vaccination site in Baton Rouge has been less than public health officials had hoped. The site was established with hours tailored to the convenience of working people: 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Wednesdays and Saturdays, and 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sundays.
“We’re going into a critical phase now where we need to target Louisianans who have been waiting and seeing what’s going to happen,” Kanter said.
The United States is also showing signs that vaccination programs are going after people who are harder to reach. Nationwide vaccinations are down 11% from the previous week, Kanter said.
“We should avail ourselves of vaccine because the supply is good,” he said.
Next week’s allocation of vaccine to Louisiana will be about the same as this week’s: about 69,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine and about 51,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine. That doesn’t count another 60,000 doses headed for Louisiana’s retail pharmacy providers.
The one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine was suspended after reports of a link to a blood-clotting condition.
But Edwards said the concern is based on only six cases among more than 219 million doses administered in the United States.
Kanter pointed to a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine showing no connection between vaccination and miscarriages or other ill effects in pregnant women.
COVID-19 is known to be linked to problems during pregnancy, Kanter said.
Despite vaccine hesitancy, the numbers continue to grow in Louisiana.
More than 1.4 million Louisiana people have received at least one shot, according to the Louisiana Department of Public Health. About 1.2 million have completed their vaccination series.
In St. Mary, the vaccination rate is 20.13% according to the latest OPH report. The rate in St. Martin is 16.98%, and in Assumption 19.9%.
Also according to the OPH:
—3,617 COVID positives have been confirmed in St. Mary since the pandemic began and another 1,009 probable cases have been reported. The death toll is at 117 confirmed and 17 probable.
—4,693 confirmed cases have been reported in St. Martin with 463 probable. The number of confirmed deaths is at 104 with 11 probable.
—1,566 confirmed cases and 593 probable cases have been reported in Assumption, where 29 COVID-related deaths have been confirmed with seven probable.