good afternoon everybody and thank you for being here today dr joe cantor is with me as normal he will be given some updates shortly on the vaccine but first as all of you know my current proclamation expires tomorrow the new proclamation which i have already signed will keep the state in the same modified phase two that we are currently in all of those mitigation measures all of those restrictions remain in effect and that it certainly includes the mask mandate this proclamation will be issued for 28 days it will expire on february the 10th in addition today i am making a strong appeal to the private sector to do everything that they can to maximize the number of employees they have who can work remotely and not have to travel and go to work and work in an office building or wherever that would be a very important thing to do right now and that's because the state remains in a precarious place cases and hospitalizations are increasing in every region you can see the the statewide graph here and as it relates to case growth in the upper right hand corner and hospitalization increases in the lower right hand corner and you can see the test positivity on the left um the the graph on the on the bottom there where our test positivity is above 10 percent in fact it's 13.7 13.7 percent uh over the most recent week for which we have information uh louisiana is currently ranked 21st in the country for average daily cases today our case report is 4673 new cases we're also very sadly reporting 53 new deaths today current count of individuals hospitalized in louisiana with covid19 2035 that's up 53 from yesterday 244 of those individuals are on mechanical ventilators uh we have no doubt that here and elsewhere in the country by the way the numbers that you are seeing are a direct result of people's actions during the holiday period the several days leading up to christmas that that interval between christmas and new year's and now obviously we're starting to see that the new year's holiday activities itself feed into these numbers and i guess the the message is the mitigation measures really do work but only to the extent that people follow them employ them informal social gatherings um and those types of things that we typically associate with holidays are the largest culprit right now that's what's feeding these case companies and look make no mistake they're still happening in retail settings they're still happening in restaurants they're all still happening in industrial settings in food processing settings and you know religious service whatever uh but but the real growth that we've seen here lately and this is one of the reasons why we can tie it um with a lot of confidence back to the holidays are these informal social gatherings whether it was a party at somebody's house or just people coming over to visit to exchange presence and and and that was done like it had been done in years past and people were inside without masks on uh in close proximity to people who are not from their immediate household and sometimes for very extended periods of time and some folks despite all of the warnings not to do this thought that well if the people come into my house test negative on their way here it must be safe it is not safe for all the reasons that we've been uh discussing for a long time now so i am imploring people that there is no doubt that the restrictions and mitigation measures that we have in place will work to arrest the case growth lower the positivity decrease the number of people going to our hospitals but only if people actually adhere to them so i'm encouraging everybody to do that because quite frankly we're not in a very good place as you know by the way the the numbers that you you saw on that graph a while ago that's every region of the state without exception every region of the state has a positivity that exceeds 10 percent has increase in cases and increasing hospitalizations just a few days ago we reported our second highest daily death total since the beginning of the pandemic 105 105 for those of you who cover the legislature or familiar with the house of representatives chamber every house i'm sorry every seat in that chamber if it were filled with an individual and they all died that would be 105. that was one day i wonder how many of those 105 would still be with us if they had decided to turn down that invitation to the christmas party or better yet had that party not happened or if they hadn't visited with grandchildren instead found some other way to communicate i would encourage everybody to understand that the best most sincere way to express our love and appreciation for others right now is to not engage in the behaviors that are likely to cause them to cause the to catch the virus the disease or to expose ourselves to it there is light at the end of the tunnel but right now we're in a very dark place as is the rest of the country but that light is the vaccine it is safe it is effective very few significantly impacted individuals as a result of side effects from from the vaccine that's been the case here in louisiana and elsewhere i would remind people that it's approximately 95 percent effective in terms of vaccinated individuals not getting coveted and it's right out 100 percent effective in preventing serious cases of cova that is an efficacy associated with these two vaccines that we're talking about the pfizer and moderna covid19 vaccines that you typically don't see in other vaccines so i do encourage people to make sure that they are prepared to and to take the vaccine when it becomes available to them um i do uh want to tell you that you know we live at a time when technology i think we're seeing some of the ills from modern technology and social media but there are some great aspects of it too it allows us to be close to individuals without being physically close it allows us to see one another and to talk to one another and so forth it also allows us to work without having to go to the office and be in close proximity to others so let's all whether it's our personal life or our business life let's try for the next month or so and we may need to do this longer but let's try for the next month or so to really maximize the degree to which we all take advantage of things like zoom and facetime and other technologies that are out there so that we can help slow the spread because i want to be clear nobody should be gathering with people outside of their immediate household unless it's necessary period you should always remember that outside is better than inside just because the venue is open doesn't mean you should go you know if you want to patronize your favorite restaurant please do that that's very helpful and you get a good meal in exchange but pick it up and bring it home if you can have it delivered people who are 65 and older and those with underlying health conditions that make them more vulnerable to this disease should not be spending much time outside of their homes except for doing essential things like work picking up food or seeking medical care and if you can have your groceries delivered or pick them up curbside and those same individuals should go in no indoor space where anyone is not wearing a mask that's been coming from the white house coronavirus task force to us for many weeks now and it's more important than ever these are the things that i think earlier in the pandemic we were doing a better job at we need to get back to these things and i doubt that there are many folks out there across our state and across the country who at this point don't know someone who has had cobit or maybe someone who has died or is in the hospital right now that'll give you some indication of just how widespread this disease is in every community across the state of louisiana so it is time to buckle down i i think we can all say that that collectively and while many individuals have been extremely careful and responsible uh too many have not and we can do a better job collectively so let's do what we know works let's wear our masks let's stay six feet away from those people are not part of our immediate household stay home when you're sick wash your hands frequently you know we were on the a phone uh conference video telephone conference earlier this afternoon with the white house chronovirus task force and one of the things that that they really stressed is that while we have the vaccination underway uh here and across the country too many people are losing sight of the essential things they have to do every day and that is the mitigation that's in place that works because despite everybody's best efforts we're not all going to be vaccinated tomorrow this is going to take some time but in the meantime this disease is being contracted by more and more individuals more and more of them are going to the hospital and more and more of them are dying so the mitigation is extremely important shifting to updates on the vaccine and there'll be more information who from dr cantor in just a moment um but it was announced today i think earlier but but then again to us on that call with vice president pinch that the cdc is changing its recommendations on who gets the vaccine now inconsistent with what came out from the advisory committee on immunization practices previously and it was that guidance that informed our decisions about creating priority groupings for receipt of the vaccine uh this this happened today we're still taking a good close look at that and and it's going to be some time before we announce uh any changes if if at all uh to our approach uh with respect to priority groups one of the reasons is we're already focused on those most vulnerable in louisiana those who are 70 and older and we still have a lot of those individuals who have yet to be vaccinated but yet who want the vaccine so we have some time here we're going to be taking a look at that but we won't be making any announcements today with respect to that under our current plan we've administered uh at least 159 690 shots of vaccine uh 21 652 of those have completed their second dose and are fully vaccinated now now those are minimum numbers because they come from links there's always lag time between when shots that are administered and when that data is up loaded into that system i can tell you that as of this week the vaccine is being administered in every parish in the state all 64 of them we have more than doubled the number of sites that that individuals can access for their vaccines it's safe and it's effective no cost to the patient this week we have 210 vaccine administration sites across the state not counting hospitals 180 of those are pharmacies 20 are fqhcs and other clinics and then we have 10 other sites like parish health units and and so forth um now that's this week we can't guarantee that that all of those sites will be furnished with vaccine next week in fact we don't even yet have next week's allocation yet that should come sometime tonight but we will make sure that every one of these locations if they're using a pfizer vaccine gets a second shot of pfizer 21 days later or if they're using moderna they get a second shot of moderna for everybody 28 days later and i do want to remind individuals that across the state if you're looking for a vaccine and you're in a priority group these 210 sites that i mentioned they're taking appointments uh and everyone who is eligible in the population of phase 1b of tier 1. you're eligible to make an appointment obviously it's subject to limitations on the amount of vaccine that they have but but you can make an appointment even if you're not an established client or patient of that particular facility and so those individuals that we're talking about those are 70 and older healthcare workers not covered in phase 1a dialysis patients and staff at dialysis centers and then home care patients and staff today the department of health has enrolled more than 1500 providers these are what we call enrolled providers for the tiberia system that was created by operation warp speed these include hospitals pharmacies clinics nursing homes and other facilities which means that that the pharmacy i'm sorry the vaccine can be shipped directly to them we can when when vaccine is allocated to us we can order that vaccine and have it delivered directly to them and then they can administer vaccine as well in addition there are another 300 or so vaccine providers who will soon complete their enrollment so we'll have around 1800 this is critically important to have the infrastructure in place as we continue to receive larger and larger allocations of vaccine from week to week which we hope will be the case and certainly that will be the case when new vaccines come online those beyond the currently available pfizer and modern vaccines because you want to have that infrastructure in place and all those systems tested and so forth so that we can very quickly administer the the vaccine in ever increasing numbers we're also excited to announce today a new partnership uh between one of our hbc us and its allied health school that being xavier university and tulane so that those health school individuals will receive their vaccine and we thank xavier and tulane for that partnership at this time i'm going to turn the podium over to dr cantor he's got more updates on the vaccine i would ask you to ask questions of him related to the vaccine as as best you can then i'll come back up conclude my remarks and take your questions as well thank you governor thank you for your leadership good afternoon everyone um to reiterate a little bit of what the governor mentioned in terms of where we are with the pandemic to be to be very blunt and very clear it has never been as bad as it is right now there has never been more coven in louisiana than there is right now the risk of community spread and community transmission has never been higher than it is right now and that is across all nine regions all 64 parishes all of our 64 parishes are in the highest category of community transmission risk according to the cdc percent positivity for this state is well above 10 hospitalizations are above both of our previous spikes and what is what is more frightening than that is is looking at the numbers we've not yet seen a suggestion that we are peaking and going down so we know we still have some epidemiologic effect from the holidays ahead of us we know that all the transmission that occurred over new year's for example and then the subsequent second and third generation transmissions from that of course have not come yet um so we think the next couple weeks are going to be very challenging and i'll tell you um anecdotally as a clinician as an er doc and in talking to colleagues of mine we've more and more patients uh that that that i've been seeing that my colleagues have been seeing have uh or under the impression that they were exposed at the informal social gatherings that the governor mentioned parties dinner parties those sorts of activities and just one of the saddest things in the world that i've seen a number of times when i work clinically and a number of my colleagues have as well is when a family does not really internalize the risk of this virus until it is their loved one in the icu bed it's really heartbreaking and it's been happening again in my anecdotal experience and increasing frequency and so i'll ask families to to to think about that things are as bad now as they ever have been we do anticipate that they're going to get worse and no family wants to be in the position of coming to the realization of how serious this virus can be until it's too late we continue day in and day out to report new fatality counts upwards of 40 sometimes as high as 60 or even 105 last week as the governor said that continues to be simply unacceptable as louisianans and i think looking ahead look what what it was done over christmas and new year's to some degree the dye is cast on that we can stop the second and third generation transmissions now and we can set ourselves up for better results going forward we have things to look forward to we have nfl playoffs we've got carnival season and folks need to be thinking now about how to enjoy those safely talk a little bit about the vaccine and i really am encouraged by by the really great work that's been happening with with the vaccine so as of this morning our administration rate is at uh 2788 um administrations per 100 000 residents um and i checked the the cdc maps out but by states where they lied as of this morning last by check i think we were at 22nd in terms of states so that's that's fairly encouraging to me i think the state's doing a good job of moving vaccine out and getting vaccine to end users and certainly the vaccine providers hospitals clinics and pharmacies are just doing a tremendous job under uh not easy circumstances because as the governor mentioned we don't get a lot of uh advanced notice of when vaccine is going to be allotted to us so what we ask of a provider so to say which is a tall ask is with very short notice to line up appointments and use that vaccine before it expires it's not easy and they're they're really doing a tremendous job i want to thank the public for making appointments for calling for not going in person to a location hoping to get vaccine you won't if you do we have clear instructions to clinics and pharmacies that they must be doing this on appointment basis no walk-ups accepted so you will not get vaccine if you just walk up to a store i think people know that in louisiana and we have avoided some of the chaotic super spreader type events where people line up that some other states have had so i want to thank people sincerely for that last week we sent 10 700 doses to 107 providers this week we are currently sending and these distributions are happening some most have happened yesterday and today some will continue today and tomorrow we're sending 35 785 doses to 210 providers of which of course 103 are new from the week prior i i do want to mention um you know we were able to do a larger disbursement this week because we had been planning to move out some of the remaining stock at at our supplier that's not going to be available to us next week so if the allocations that the federal government give us hold and we think they're going to be in the same ballpark for the next few weeks um it means that not all of the 210 community providers will be able to receive vaccine next week i do have to temper expectations on that and that's just a simple reality of the vaccine that we are getting from the federal government i also want to mention that the um the long-term care facility partnership program with walgreens and cvs is going fairly well as of today as of this morning walgreens has administered 6144 doses in nursing homes and cvs has administered 6414 doses in nursing homes i do want to let folks know we had a little bit more vaccine loss to report and this continues to really really sadden me because every every dose is so precious we now are up to 228 dosages lost we've taken a couple steps to address that sizeable loss that i mentioned last week and namely we've partnered with the public service commission to ensure that locations that are storing vaccine in their fridges and freezers are prioritized for priority energy preservation in the event of outages so i think that'll help us going forward we also know as as entities and they certainly hope to use all the vaccine they have available to them within the time period and it can be short you know for pfizer for an entity that that receives fires or vaccine unless they're using it under ultracold which only the larger hospitals can do they essentially have four and a half or five days to use that vaccine until until it expires our regional offices of public health are prepared to help shepherd that remaining doses around at the last minute if we need to to ensure that no dose gets lost because it simply hits the hits the buzzer on the time so to say i also want to let people know we did report our first serious adverse reaction from a vaccine and i'm thankful to let people know that the individual is doing very well spent one or two nights in the hospital and has been released and has recovered it was it was not a horrible reaction the individual took the vaccine and then later that night had some gi upset felt dizzy went into the hospital and is now released and doing doing fine we've reported that to the cdc that's the only such report that we've made of that nature to the cdc so far um a lot of news has happened today the other thing that the uh federal government has has mentioned both i believe publicly um and also in the white house call that just ended prior to this press conference is that they'll be releasing uh the second dose allotments that they have been securing um centrally be releasing those to the state this this presents um somewhat of an interesting situation for us because i think when people hear that they might think that we're going to get double the doses but it's not unfortunate i wish that was true people still need the second dose the second dose is still essential as the governor mentioned we have no idea what type of durability and protection this these vaccines provide beyond that 21 and 28 day period so the second dose remains essential and the challenge for for us going forward is until the federal government is able to give us a more predictable cadence of vaccine deliveries until they're able to tell us listen three or four weeks out from now you will be getting this amount we're going to have to be thoughtful about those second doses and ensure that those second doses are available for patients when their 21 or 28 days um is up i expect we'll learn more about this in the coming days and we'll be communicative with you about that to go over the allotments that are happening this week for for this week we are being provided by the federal government a total of pfizer product 28 275 and of moderna 27 500 of which thousand seven hundred gets diverted off to the long-term care partnership program and eighty eight hundred comes to us in the state we were expecting to know by now what next week's allotments will be they've not yet posted by operation warp speed we expect them to be posted later tonight but the the anticipation um or what we've been hinting is that it should be in the same ballpark as what we've been given folks will recognize that's not a lot of vaccine unfortunately and that's that's the essence of the conundrum right now we have a lot more people eager to get the vaccine and a lot more providers eager to give the vaccine then we have vaccine available to us from the feds that's the number one challenge we face right now and every day we hear providers hospitals clinics pharmacies say we are ready to give vaccine to a large group of people just just supply us and i think it's encouraging to hear that and we're anxious to have enough vaccine to be able to do that we are as the governor mentioned doing everything we can to gear up for larger volume vaccine events we've enrolled over 1500 vaccine providers that's going to pay dividends when we have more vaccine available and as the governor mentioned we have schools of allied health like the tulane xavier partnership today vaccinating their residents students and faculty so that we will have those individuals available as vaccine providers when the time comes a lot of people in the community and hospitals as well are doing a lot of legwork now to prepare for the larger scale mass volume vaccine events that we are eagerly awaiting and the limiting factor is just how much vaccine we have available to do that but the work is being done now to to prepare so i do want to just close and remind folks um as we continue to get more granular about the vaccine this is the most dangerous time in louisiana we've we've gone up from from last week and although it's it's a new year and there's a lot of distractions and plenty of things to be uh you know thankful and excited for um the risk of community transmission is is higher now than it ever has been and folks really need to take that to heart it is dangerous right now and people need to be as careful as possible be happy to answer any questions yes sir i'm curious about some of the statistics that were reported saying that the vaccine that is coming to louisiana number four was that of 266 thousand only 28 has actually made it into arms which wouldn't do any good really yeah there's there's some nuance in there so so grand total now we've had just over 320 um thousand doses allocated to louisiana of which 93 600 have been diverted off to the long-term care partnership so so we don't really see those until walgreens and cvs uses those in the nursing homes giving about 228 200 that is under our um direction so to say of those um 138 000 uh 046 um so so a decent number over half have gotten administered so far as is evident in our tracking system and a big limiting factor is a lot of people are doing vaccines and entering it on paper at the time of service and then going back and logging it into the computer so we don't have an accurate number to say this many shots and arms were given today until those entries and the data systems you know transmitted over so it does lag a little bit as the governor has said we made some big changes last week to um to basically set ourselves up to use as much as possible mainly being instructing hospitals uh that now they have full range once they have enough vaccine available to offer to the community within the eligibility tears and also to move vaccine out of the storage facilities um at morrison dixon so over 13 000 doses of moderna got moved out this week and somewhere between three and four thousand doses of pfizer are being moved out right now that will essentially um zero out the stores that we have at the morrison dixon facility so i think all of those are gonna help that and then the biggest thing is just for i mean we asked this of providers if they could enter in their administrations as quickly as possible into links we'll be able to get more timely data to you yeah i think it was multi-factor yeah i think it was a combination i think some providers kind of caught up with their entries or came close to hospitals opened up to a larger circle um and then we moved some of that vaccine out into the community so yep so one of the changes the federal government announced today was they're going to start allocating vaccine doses based on how well we're doing here right and using our vaccine so to that point are you offering incentives or any you know how are you going to you know incentivize these providers to upload it to links quickly because that's a big component here if we're going to be getting the vaccine based on this and also to clarify you're basically saying even though the feds are releasing all the dosage you're still going to hold back half the doses right now for the second shots while we until to the second point we need to do some more more strategic planning it might not be exactly half the doses it might be some percentage based on what we can expect and that percentage that we have to hold back gets less and less the more that operation warp speed can tell us okay three or four weeks out this is what you can expect the more that they can guarantee us a minimum dosage the more that we will feel comfortable getting out what we don't want to happen is is no one should not have their second dose available to them when their 21 or 28 days come up so i i don't know if it would be that many but that's i mean that's that's what we're going to be planning for over the next um week or two and say i'm sorry just remind me of the first part yeah yeah you know this again this this was announced today and again there's going to be a new administration um in a couple weeks so we'll have to see you know how that how that all changes our main incentive to providers is that we're communicating very clearly now that we're not going to resupply anyone that has remaining stock and the way that we know our barometer for remaining stock is that linked system so the faster that a provider can enter into links it will allow them to be able to receive new supply when that becomes available and it will allow us to get timelier data on the administration's being given yep sir has there been any consideration like texas and california in terms of how they have they're using some facilities like large stadiums to have mass vaccinations yeah absolutely and there's been a lot of planning um communities and hospitals i know right now with the regional office of public health are planning for these large-scale events and the limiting factor now is just how much vaccine to have and this is a this is the challenge it's it's a zero-sum situation and in order to supply a few communities during large-scale vaccination events the the the consequence of that would be not being able to supply pharmacies and clinics and and right now we're we're we're happy that we're able to supply pharmacies and clinics in all 64 parishes and to do so at we hope would be a decent cadence and that wouldn't be an option if we were to divert those vaccines to those type of large-scale events that's the challenge i think states are making different decisions on that the decision that we've made so far is we want to make sure that people across the state have access to vaccine and that's for the next couple weeks as supply lasts and again i have to really have to temper this because because we moved out that that that stock at morris and dixon we had a larger amount of vaccine to push out this week that's why we're able to go to 210 providers we're not going to have that much next week um because we're essentially zeroing out those stocks so not every one of those 210 providers that's receiving this week is going to is going to receive next week melinda the discrepancy happens is because of the angel doses and the program what happens so we were referring angel doses as the pfizer vials um as we found out um that you can get more than five doses at it uh usually six doses that wasn't planned for on the front end and and what providers do on the back end when they realize those extra doses as they go back into the system and enter that in as inventory and so that's why it's essentially that cdc uh snapshot is showing a larger amount of vaccine than operation warp speed actually allocated to us because they allocated to us at five dose of bile for pfizer but yet people were able to get six sometimes even seven then the number of doses doses that the state ended up receiving as opposed to having allocated to it because that's the number of doses the state has available to go into arts i mean i wouldn't i wouldn't argue with that i think it's just two different ways of counting it yeah yeah yes sir except that it depends on the syringe you're using to draw it out because they didn't marry up the syringes that don't have the dead space is what they call it with the visor vaccine so go ahead and explain that because if there's not sex doses in every body there's not there's if you you need a small gauge syringe you need to draw up in a particular way and and i would not it's not a given that any provider is going to be able to do that it just becomes challenging to to marry the numbers because we have the number of doses that operation warp speed sent to us and then you have the number of doses that essentially gets entered as inventory by a provider because of those extra doses so it makes it for a little bit the the the comparison becomes confusing no they report it to us in links which then communicates on the back end to the cdc and the numbers that i've typically been reporting to you as the weekly allocations i'm reporting what operation warp speed makes it visible to us in terms of what they're sending to us yes sir um it's a great question i i don't know the answer i i can talk from my own experience um it's been it's been a hard 10 11 months you know i mean it's been it's been a heck of a year and i think we all were excited about the new year and i mean the governor mentioned this couple weeks ago it's just because it's 2021 it's not going to look different for a few more once down the road i think we all have a lot of fatigue and we're ready for this thing to be to be done but again as the governor's mentioned it's not done with us so i think that's the essence of the challenge i think where we um need to be thoughtful and and you know our communications challenge essentially is how to continuously remind folks of the danger without doing so in a way that is repetitive or is um easily ignored and i think that that is a challenge because it's been going on for so long i think louisianans are are resilient and and accustomed to responding to emergencies this is just an emergency of duration that we're not used to um so the more that we talk about it i think the better the more that we can share stories of of families that are affected by this virus the better but fatigue is real and we need to acknowledge that head-on it's completely understandable to be fatigued we all are that said we still have a ways to go and we are more in the thick of it now than we ever have been before you know i i hope it's not i hope it's not i think it's um it's certainly more things to consider i i i hope it's not and we're not going to get to a point with the vaccine where it makes a public health impact until months down the road you know i mean it certainly will make an impact you know if a nursing home resident gets vaccinated that makes a giant impact in their life and their family's life it's not going to make a public health impact um until until down the road and that's we need to be clear about that last question sir then i'll turn it over yeah there's a tool that has been developed since all this happened that has now been confirmed to predict the severity and outcomes it's the taste test um tool that has been developed by a doctor here in town and i'm wondering if there's been the consideration of using that because it provides people with a lot of information about how they genetically react to getting over in october um i think they would get if they don't get and the numbers are running close to 100 accurate if you're a taster or not yeah i think the challenge is is taking that information into something that's actionable and we have pretty good data right now on who is more likely um to get sick and efforts to direct therapies like monoclonal antibodies to them i think there's a lot of room for improvement and refinement in that and and items like that i think are going to play into that i think that's going to happen over the next few weeks um or months or so to say as we do it expensive yeah i i think those type of things are going to be coming online more and i mean look we still even though we're able to say on average these type of individuals do very poorly um over 70 ages so forth and comorbidities it's not it's not exclusive and then every day you hear examples of people that don't fit that category that inten that have bad outcomes and that's humbling thank you everyone thank you dr cantor i appreciate your work and and the work of everybody at ldh and all of our partners all all across the state and our federal partners as well we may have had our last white house growing virus task force conference call today with this particular task force at least and i was able to express that to them and that brings me to a point i wanted to make a week from tomorrow there'll be a new administration in washington and so at some point subsequent to that and i suspect within a few days of the inauguration we're going to be hearing from the new administration and to determine whether it is going to maintain those changes that were announced today with respect to the federal government not holding back the second dose but rather shipping that to the states whether they're going to change the allocation formula going forward to take into consideration the degree to which you are administering the vaccine that you're receiving or whether they're going to move away from those things or have different changes that they have in mind too what we know is today there were some things that were now very different than what we were told uh to expect and and based on those expectations we created the plan that we have in place uh and and that plan uh certainly includes those priority groups uh that we've already announced and and so we'll be taking a look at that and and i want to also revisit this idea because i think it's really important uh for people to understand that if they hear that another state is doing a max vaccination event then they think well there are more people per capita being vaccinated in that state than we're having here in louisiana because we're not having those mass events well i will tell you if you're using the vaccine that you're receiving you're vaccinating as many people as you can vaccinate and so then you have to make this determination and it's especially critical when you don't yet have you know just huge amounts of vaccine doses coming in every week do you have several large events where people have to travel to try to get vaccinated or do you push it out like we did this week with 200 different sites administering vaccines in all 64 parishes and i will tell you if you're interested in equity and if you want to have the largest possible reach across the state of louisiana you do the 210 sites when you're able to do them that way more people have access to it it's a much more equitable way to distribute and at the end of the day you vaccinated as many people as you could have done at mass events but those mass events are going to draw people from the areas where you're actually having them so so we look forward to having mass events in addition to what we're doing now when the vaccine allocation supports that and we're rehearsing for that we're planning for that and and i want people to know that we we hope that that day comes sooner rather than later i i will tell you that there are many people working very hard to ensure that shots are getting into arms and probably the second most important thing to do with respect to the vaccine program is making sure the data is getting put into links and that's especially true if if operation warp speed is going to factor that into future allocations it won't be based simply on that but if it's going to be a factor at all we absolutely have to do that and i have talked to all of our hospital major hospitals across the state multiple times about that personally i know ldh is doing that and we're also talking to all of these enrolled providers the pharmacies and others about making sure that that data is put into links just as quickly as possible in in we announced the change last week that we were going to make sure that vaccine does not sit on the shelf any longer than is absolutely necessary that's how we were able to take this week's allocation plus what we had available to us in those stocks and make put 210 sites into operation this week and that's also going to be our guiding principle going forward even after the federal government starts sending all of the vaccine and they're not holding back that second shot but we're we don't we know we have to be prepared for that second shot to be administered 21 days later if it's 5 or 28 days later if it's moderna but we don't believe we're going to have to hold back all of the second doses to ensure that we can meet that criteria but we have to be very deliberate in planning that and like dr cantor said the more information we can get from operation warp speed as to the allocation we can expect not next week but three weeks out will that will give us the comfort that we're going to need to then free up some of those second doses in the meantime to go to first doses because we'll we'll feel very confident we're going to be able to administer the second doses at the prescribed time intervals i do want to say a few words about the security concerns that have been raised for the u.s capital and state capitals all over the country i think all 50 states for uh the upcoming uh time period i think starting this weekend and going through the uh the inauguration at least uh we are aware of that we're communicating with our federal partners uh we're obviously monitoring the situation here i think we can all be heartened by the fact that we've had demonstrations in protests at the capitol and elsewhere for many weeks now all of which have been entirely peaceful uh with no lawlessness no no property damage no violence and certainly we expect that that will continue we hope that that will continue and um you know the first amendment is is critically important we all should support one another's rights to um assemble and to have their voice heard but obviously it's critically important that they do that in a way that is peaceful uh non-violent um and and in accord with the law we expect that that's what's going to happen here um and we will certainly be monitoring the situation both ahead of time and uh as these these uh protests and demonstrations happen to try to make sure that they remain peaceful uh and and so forth and i just put a a call out to the people of louisiana who are intending to participate in that um look we'll protect your right to do it um but at the same time we're asking you to make sure that you follow the law um and and would remind you that that as you gather you're doing so at a time during the pandemic and and there's no doubt now but that last week's event at the u.s capitol became a super spreader event um and so where you have even outside if you have enough people close enough together for long periods of time they're not wearing masks that that can be a very dangerous uh environment so we do encourage people to be mindful of that uh and to wear a mask as well um and again it's it's been a it's been our experience that that all of the demonstrations and and protests in louisiana have been entirely uh peaceful having said that that obviously was not the case in washington last week and this past week has been a difficult and dark one for our country and like i suspect many louisianans and our fellow americans you know i've spent the last several days reflecting on what happened and you know each report as more information becomes available and they get deeper into the details of what happened there each report seems to be worse than the previous one i can tell you as a veteran as a governor as an american as a louisianan both angry and saddened by what we saw that should never ever happen in the united states of america and you know sometimes we we say i never thought i'd see that well it never occurred to me to even think about this i mean it's worse than never thought about it this is just not what we're supposed to see in the united states of america and what happened on january 6 is congress was doing its constitutionally required duty of certifying the election to have people go in and demand that they not perform that function that's just unacceptable and it was violent they damaged property yeah it's just it's beyond anything that any of us uh should ever expect to see in the united states of america and people in positions of authority um all here in louisiana across the country i hope we can commit now uh to making sure that that we're going to do all that we can to put a stop to this that we're going to be honest with the people that we represent and that we govern um avoid political grandstanding and misleading people to cause them to have the concerns that would rise to the level that they would even feel that this somehow was appropriate no we've we've lost enough the pandemic has taken away so much from us we shouldn't make that worse with continued division and violence and and peaceful demonstrations are certainly a part of free speech i mentioned that a while ago uh violent lawless demonstrations those aimed at upsetting you know our democracy and undermining our constitutions those are not so i guess you know y'all heard me say a lot of times let's be good neighbors to one another that's true with respect to code but it's also true with respect to being americans let's let's be good americans as well so at this time i'll i'll take a few questions sam governor um do you have any insight into you know obviously we have thousands of people on waiting lists right now demand there's exceeding supplies while keeping demands fall down well what we know is that the demand for those in the current order of priority exceeds the supply to the point where we're not ready to move uh and what we're looking at is figuring out a trigger and and one thing that we've discussed is when 80 percent uh when there's an 80 uptake on the available um uh vaccine uh meaning that that 20 of the appointments are not getting filled will move to the next order of priority um the the first time that that happens um and you know that's that's a rather simple way to do it um and and we're looking at all of that now it's we don't have to make that decision just yet because we're not there but we're going to have very large populations in these orders of priority uh and it's going to take quite some time to get the vaccine to them uh so it but it will not work uh in the way that some people have envisioned it where everybody in one a gets vaccinated before you go to one b tier one and then everybody in one b tier one gets it and you turn them off and you go to one b tier two it's it's not going to be that way and uh it was described today and i think uh by secretary azar on our call and i think this is a way to help people understand it it's sort of like loading an airplane you know you load by where people sit uh but at the but at the same time um you know you see people who who are continuing to load uh even after their group was called um and and that's that's the the way this is going to work and we're still working through that right now to be very honest with you but we'll make sure that there's a relatively seamless uh way to make those transitions yes sir uh yeah well we're going to be looking at the gating criteria um and we do that really uh not just when the the uh current proclamation is about to end we do that periodically throughout um the the time period that we're in um a given phase and and so we're going to continue to do that uh especially as it relates to percent positivity uh case growth hospitalizations i mean those are those are the the things that we're going to continue to look at obviously the more people who get vaccinated especially those who are more vulnerable to the disease then you can expect that there will be fewer people going into the hospital and fewer people dying but we're we're quite a ways from that right now but what we know and this is true in many things not just vaccinations the quicker we can get vaccinations administered to those most those groups based on age and and uh other things that make them especially vulnerable to disease the quicker we can do that the quicker we're going to have an impact on those numbers from the vaccination program but in the meantime it's incumbent on all of us to have a positive impact on those numbers by wearing our masks and by distancing and washing our hands and staying home when we're sick and engaging in all of those mitigation measures that we've been talking about yes ma'am you've already announced what um the next group is phase one tier two whatever correct you got it do you do you see a possibility of keeping that list of who's included in that group before moving to it now that the cdc has issued guidance and is there a possibility to tweak the rules of those who are currently eligible yeah you know because we haven't we just found out about this today and we haven't made the decisions everything that you just mentioned is possible uh because we haven't decided uh what we're gonna do um with respect to these new recommendations it would probably and this is me thinking out loud and dr cantor's saying please don't do that it would be more likely that we would adjust what is in phase 1b tier two rather than adjust what we are currently doing because we have a group out there that we have promised they are the priority right now and we haven't come close to to having the supply necessary to get them all vaccinated uh and so when we move to the next group that group may look a little different a little larger uh than it currently does based on the recommendations that we got today um and look i know this is a it may not seem like a big thing to a lot of members in the public but we based our plan on the cdc guidance and the asic recommendations that we got uh weeks ago and they changed that plan today i mean that this is not a minor insubstantial change because i don't believe that the asip ever contemplated that people below 75 we went to 70 in louisiana but below 75 would be prioritized as a group before people of certain occupations and now they've come in and they've added 10 years worth of of people those those 65 to 74 where they wasn't in the previous recommendation at all and so we have to to look at that in louisiana it will be less of an impact here because we already went down to 70. but but there's a lot of work to be done and we've only had this this new guidance for the last couple of hours and and so i suspect we're not going to be making a change right away and one of the things that i'm most interested in seeing is what is the new recommendation going to be or i'm sorry what is the new administration going to do with respect to these very same recommendations um will it will it uh stand by those or not and and so forth so we're working on it i can assure you we're working on it andre how is the ad campaign working to try to encourage people to make sure that they're um obviously the the vaccine hesitancy remains more pronounced than we would want it to be but it is less pronounced than it was a month ago and two months ago for sure one of the things that secretary azar commented on today is that through polling and other information that they have available hesitancy across the country is diminishing over time and it principally happens when you see someone in your family or a colleague especially if they look like you they get vaccinated they don't have a severe reaction and and you know they seem to be well then all of a sudden you're much more interested in getting it that seems to be happening across louisiana today i don't want to kid anybody there's still more people than i would like to see who are declining to be vaccinated when it's available to them and and hopefully they will come to believe as i do that it is safe and effective but more than that it is safe and effective and it is the only way to put this pandemic behind us uh and so so and that hesitancy also is more pronounced in certain demographics as well um and and so we we need uh people and you talked about an ad campaign um we we do uh need to make sure that there are folks out there promoting the safety and efficacy of the vaccine who look like the people that are going to be taking it so they can't all look like me right we have to we have to do that and and i think that is happening across the state it's also happening across the country and i'm never going to tell you that that communication uh is as good as it should be or will be but but i am i am optimistic that at the end of the day enough people are going to be vaccinated that we can put this pandemic behind us yes sir um well you know i know that the mayor in new orleans made an announcement a long time ago that there wouldn't be the large events associated with mardi gras now that was only good for orleans parish i will tell you that anybody who thinks mardi gras this year should in any way resemble what we typically do is making a tremendous mistake much like individuals did with how they traveled and gathered for the holidays i mean you just can't with the degree of community spread that we have and the number of people in our hospitals right now the idea that we would have large uh celebrations like a mardi gras ball like a mardi gras parade just absolutely irresponsible and and so it's not consistent with with the current uh mitigation measures and with the restrictions that we have in place here i know it's not in new orleans as well so there are there are some folks who are spending a lot of time trying to figure out how we can preserve as much of our uh unique uh traditions and and so forth as we can but but do it safely i think they're looking at a lot of virtual events and other things that could take place so that we don't go without mardi gras this year but we're gonna you know had a piece of king cake yesterday by the way you know and i know that's a that's a small thing but there are certain things that we can't do uh maybe we shouldn't like the king cake but but we can do those uh and and preserve as much of that mardi gras tradition as possible until we can have the normal celebrations which hopefully will be next year yes sir um well we don't know um i don't know that we have confirmed the presence of the new variant in louisiana through genetic sequencing of the virus i would tell you we should all assume that it's here um i i can tell you it certainly appears to me that the virus is transmitting more easily uh more quickly um and it could just be a function of how much more there is in the community or it could be that plus the fact that we have a new variant of it that is more easily transmitted but it doesn't make any difference as far as what we should be doing right now uh it is the mitigation it's the wear and the mask the washing the hands the physical distancing staying home when you're sick those are the things that we have to do uh regardless of whether we have it or not and you know that's that's really what viruses do over time they always mutate and quite often it's it's it's in a way that makes it more transmissible um and so if that's been detected elsewhere we should assume that it's happening here i mean this and and quite frankly in the united states of america we're not taking enough uh samples of the virus and doing the genetic sequencing on it like other countries are to always know uh have a good handle on when we have a new variant but but we just don't know we should assume it i i can tell you i received a communication last week from someone on the white house coronavirus task force who floated the possibility uh dr burke certainly didn't say uh that that she knew for a fact but but it was a working theory that they had is that there are there is at least a new variant um that is that is working its way across the country and that we should we should uh expect that it's that it's present not that it really changes anything other than perhaps make it a little more urgent that we all do the things that we've been talking about doing all along you have to follow up on that well i'll let dr cantor answer this i what one thing i can tell you is the cdc itself is testing twice as many samples now as they were just several weeks ago and when i say testing doing the genetic sequencing to see whether there is a new variant at play in the state of louisiana there is a little bit of this going on i know that we are asking tulane uh to do more uh genetic sequencing so that we have an entity in state that that's taking a look at this and i don't know if we've gotten a report back from them yet so so of the samples that they have been sequencing they have not detected a new variant in louisiana again i i don't i don't take that to mean that it isn't present in louisiana we just haven't scientifically tested uh the new variant to be present yes sir the feds are sending down i think three billion dollars to states for vaccine distribution uh do you know what our share of that money is yeah um so if memory serves me we have 247 million dollars coming for testing and around um 28 million for 42. and it's been a while since i looked at that number but but what what i was struck by is how much additional funding we got for testing as opposed to a vaccine allocation and and and dr canner and i'll get you the more precise figure shortly but i think it's going to be around 40 million or so whereas we're getting well over 200 million dollars for additional funding related to testing all of which is really important um and and we do believe that there will be additional packages coming from congress the new administration has said as such and what whether they include additional money for the vaccine distribution and administration remains to be seen but i know that they have they have indicated that they would like to do that uh but that's those are the the funds that i'm about what is the money to be used well there's cost associated with everything that we're doing with respect to the to the vaccine um and and uh you know i can i can get you a better handle on where we anticipate those dollars flowing and in fact i don't think the dollars are even here yet we've started the vaccine program so so a lot of them will go to reimburse things that we've already expended money on we've been we've been paying for this for a while and then as you ramp up and you hopefully get ever increasing allocations then the costs actually increase so that if you do these mass events in addition mass vaccination events in addition to the the fixed sites that you have all around the state there's costs associated with all of that um you know i can tell you that that one of the things that we're concerned about from a cost perspective is relates to one of the changes that was announced today so if the federal government's if operation warp speed stops holding the second dose and sends it all to us and we have to hold it then then we're going to have to pay for that to happen and and for it to then be distributed on order to the various sites so that it can be administered whereas if operation warp speed held it itself and we ordered it they would pay for the cost of distributing directly to that enrolled provider who's going to administer that second injection so the change the change they talked about today is going to be much more costly uh for the states we don't know how much call more costly uh yet but but we know it's gonna it's gonna involve more costs any any other questions andre you got one okay look uh thank you all uh very much for continuing to cover this uh you know it's it's sort of hard to deliver two messages at the same time and have them both receive the way you you want to there is a light at the end of the tunnel this vaccination effort is incredibly important it's what's going to eventually allow us to put this pandemic behind us uh return to uh normalcy i pray by the before the end of 2021 and we should start getting much better much sooner than that but the next several weeks are going to be incredibly tough dr redfield of the cdc today said on the white house coronavirus task force call that the next four to six weeks will be the worst that we have experienced as a country and quite frankly there's not a lot we can do about that today to make those weeks any better but if we want to limit it to four to six weeks and then see a leveling off and get better then we all have things that we have to do starting today and those are the things we've been talking about all along and i know people are tired of hearing it i know many people are tired of doing these things but this is the challenge that we've been given this this is this is our moment and either we're going to do it or not and if we don't do it needless of our brothers and sisters across the state across the country are going to die they're going to be hospitalized we're going to continue to tax our health care delivery system it's going to continue to cause people to be in poorer health than they otherwise would be not just because of covet but for any condition that requires hospitalization so i urge everybody to get the vaccine when you are able understand that it is safe and effective and it is the only way we're going to get past this pandemic but also to understand that we have to keep wearing our mask and distancing and washing our hands and staying home when we're sick critically important and i do want to prepare everybody for the next several weeks they're just not going to be pretty will be the hardest weeks that we've had since the pandemic kit but we do have it within our control to make sure that it's just a few weeks and then we get better after that and i i have every confidence that the people of louisiana will do that so thank you all very much our next press conference will be scheduled for next week and we'll we'll let you know next week when when that's going to be and thank you all for changing your schedule and coming over here today was important for us to be able to have a video telephone conference with the white house task force and and we do that from here because this is where the technology is best for that uh and so we just we just stayed here for the press conference i don't know whether next week's press conference will be here or back over at the capitol but but we'll let you know then thank you so much and god bless are you