Govenor Edwards held a press briefing on Tuesday to give an update on the State's COVID response and vaccination update.
Edwards was at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge to announce updates.
Edwards announced that his current order is set to expire on Wednesday February 10. With precent positivity still high, and continued concern over deaths, hospitalizations and new strains of the virus, Edwards announced that Louisiana will stay in modified phase 2 for 21 more days.
More people in the state have now received the vaccine than have tested positive in the state, Edwards said.
Last week, the state expanded those eligible to receive the vaccine including people 65 and older.
1.2 Million Louisianans are now eligible to receive the vaccine. That also includes Governor John Bel Edwards who has held off getting the vaccine until now, when expansion could be done.
Edwards along with the Unified Command Group received their first dose of the vaccine on Tuesday.
"Supply is getting better every week," Edwards said. "We are going to do everything we can to address hospital capacity and saving lives."
For those eligible for the vaccine, Edwards is encouraging residents that the vaccine is safe and effective. Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin, and DOTD Director Shawn Wilson were a few of the officials who were on hand to receive their vaccine.
Penington Director John Kirwan says that today is a day of hope. A COVID vaccine super-site has been created to vaccinate 7,000 patients a week.
"Our challenge as a community is to administer this vaccine to our residents as quickly as possible," he said.
Penington says they have the capacity to sequence the tests of the virus to understand the strains of virus in the state.
Richard Bath the head of FMOL says that they are ready to offer vaccines to the community, delivering as many as possible.
Bath says that among the sites they already have for vaccinations, they will be administering vaccines at the super-site in Baton Rouge.
They hope to continue to expand the vaccination process in the future.
Kyle Ardoin who was on hand thanks front-line workers and the thanked the governor for making election workers a top priority in the vaccination eligibility group expansion.
"We grately appreciate their sacrifice and we will work to keep them safe as they do their duties," Ardoin said.
The majority of election workers, Ardoin said, are older or elderly people in the state who are most at risk.
"I think it is important, and he (Edwards) saw that it was important," Ardoin said. "The light is around the corner. Masking is important and vaccinations are important.
Ardoin called for residents to get the vaccine. "without it we can't survive it."
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BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - Gov. John Bel Edwards is readying to receive his first dose of the coronavirus vaccine.
His vaccination Tuesday comes a day after he expanded access to the shots to include Louisiana government officials involved in pandemic response work.
The 54-year-old Democrat was scheduled to get his vaccination in the afternoon at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center campus in Baton Rouge, along with several other state officials who are newly able under Louisiana's latest eligibility criteria.
Edwards widened Louisiana residents' access to the coronavirus vaccine Monday.
He lowered the eligibility age from 70 to 65 and added officials handling COVID-19 response work and workers for the March 20 election.
A press conference will be held at 3:00 pm on Tuesday. KATC will stream on Facebook and KATC.com
A stream is below:
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