LOUISIANA – Central Louisiana’s Office of Public Health (Region 6) said the state denied its request for 3,000 vaccines to give out next week.
The plan was to have 2,000 vaccines at the Rapides Parish Coliseum and allocate the rest around the region. They were only approved for 100 vaccines in Catahoula Parish because there were no other vaccine providers in that area.
State Senator Jay Luneau says every place in Louisiana is getting their share of vaccines, but the state is not receiving the number of vaccines they were promised to distribute.
“The companies aren’t producing them as quickly as they thought they would and it also might be that some states have gotten more than others for some reason,” said Sen. Luneau.
Pharmacies and hospitals in Region 6 have already received the COVID-19 vaccines, but Luneau doesn’t know yet if the Office of Public Health’s request to receive an additional 3000 vaccines will be granted because of the limited supply.
Sen. Luneau said, “I don’t think they have vaccines that they could pull from another area. The office has asked to be able to administer vaccines which I agree with and eventually I think we will get that going, but right now we don’t have the additional vaccines.”
Luneau added that the problem with allocating vaccines properly across Louisiana is that the state sometimes doesn’t find out how many vaccines they will be getting until the day of.
Central Louisiana’s Office of Public Health will have to make another request on Tuesday and wait until the end of next week to hopefully hand out vaccines the following week.
