On December 31, Gov. Edwards announced that doses of the COVID-19 vaccine will be available to pharmacies statewide in limited supply beginning January 4 to be administered to people 70 and older and additional health care workers.

The initial supply of vaccine will be extremely limited and people must contact a designated pharmacy to make appointments before going in to be vaccinated. At this time, only people in Priority Group 1-B, Tier One, which is people 70 years and older and ambulatory and outpatient health care personnel, will be able to get the COVID vaccine at a designated pharmacy. Appointments are required.

Beginning on the 4th, the Louisiana Department of Health will list pharmacies where the COVID vaccine is available on its website, covidvaccine.la.gov.

“I am relieved to end this year by expanding access to the COVID vaccine to more Louisianans, though I know we have a long road ahead of us before we put this pandemic in our rear view mirrors,” Gov. Edwards said.

In the first two weeks of vaccination, 45,289 Louisianans have received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, which is safe and effective against the virus. A second dose must be administered for people to gain fuller protection from COVID.

So far, 210,350 doses have been allocated for Louisiana, of which 56,200 have been designated for the federal Long Term Care Facilities partnership and reside with Walgreens and CVS.

The priority groups for Louisiana are as follows: Priority Group 1-A: Ongoing (around 249,000 eligible people)

• Health care workers at Tier 1 and Tier 2 hospitals
• Staff and residents of nursing homes and long-term care facilities
• Emergency Medical Services employees and firefighters

Priority Group 1-B, Tier One: Starts Monday, January 4, 2021 (around 640,000 eligible people)

• Schools of allied health students, residents and staff
• End stage renal disease facility personnel and patients
• Home agency patients and personnel
• Ambulatory and outpatient health care personnel
• Persons 70 years old and older

Priority Group 1-B, Tier Two: Starts at a later date (around 318,750 eligible people)

• Health-related support personnel (labs, mortuary, pharmacy)
• Essential governmental response personnel
• Judiciary personnel
• Department of Homeland Security personnel, National Guard (non-COVID deployed), federal intelligence and security personnel, military personnel
• First responders not covered in Phase 1A
• Corrections officers and jailers Medical transportation services
• Homeless shelter and other congregate group home/center staff
• K-12 school and daycare personnel
• Food processing and agricultural workers
• Postal personnel
• Public transit workers
• Grocery store workers and other deemed frontline essential workers