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Hospitals seeing rush for vaccine appointments as state expands eligibility
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BATON ROUGE - COVID-19 vaccination efforts picked up speed at Baton Rouge General's Bluebonnet campus Wednesday.
Just minutes after the governor announced vaccine eligibility had expanded, 28-year-old Adam Escousse rushed to sign up.
"I was waiting for it and immediately went to the computer to see if I could sign up before it got crazy," Escousse said.
Booking an appointment was a shockingly quick process for many new vaccine hopefuls like Jason Breaux.
"The eligibility guidelines leaked across the internet. As soon as I saw those guidelines, I jumped on and scheduled as soon as I could," Breaux said.
BRG has expanded its vaccine clinic to accommodate the new wave of people who now qualify. Hospital officials say they're now administering about 1,500 COVID-19 shots a week.
"Everything has been great. Now that they've lowered the criteria, we're seeing new patients of a younger age group come in. We've been super busy, and our appointments have been filling up quickly," said BRG's clinic supervisor, Libby Leblanc.
The vaccine clinic has an efficient process that's solely dependent on the number of vaccines available.
"We have been given an increase in number of doses. Because of that, we've been able to expand our facility. We have two separate waiting rooms along with an injection site," Leblanc said.
The clinic's new expansions are a plan to give the fight against COVID-19 a real shot in the arm.
"It's getting close to being over, and we can go back to doing normal things again," Escousse said.
Healthcare professionals at Baton Rouge General have already administered more than 17,000 doses of the COVID vaccine.
You can make an appointment by visiting BRGeneral.org/vaccine.
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