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The final COVID-19 vaccine step will arrive in Louisiana on Monday, March 29th. As of that date, all Louisiana residents 16-and-older will be eligible for the COVID vaccine. The announcement was made today by Governor John Bel Edwards...

The reason that the vaccine is limited to 16-and-older is based on the FDA and CDC regulations for the vaccines, not a decision made by the state.

Previously the Governor had discussed that this would likely be the final step in the vaccine rollout, since it will cover all of those impacted medically by COVID-19. Which is part of the reason why the vaccines were not cleared for use in children.

The move will help to accelerate the rapidly growing vaccination rates in Louisiana. The rate of vaccinations in the state has been jumping weekly as the total vaccination population grows. Meaning more people are getting vaccinated this week than last week, and last week had more than the week before, and so on since January.

The rates in 2021 look like this:

1/1 -
Initiated - 1%
Done - 0%

1/22 -
Initiated - 5.9%
Done - 0.9%

2/1 -
Initiated - 7.3% (growth of 6.3% in one month)
Done - 1.2% (growth of 0.3% in one month)

2/22 -
Initiated - 12.1% (growth of 6.2% in one month)
Done - 6.3% (growth of 5.1% in one month)

3/1 -
Initiated - 14.1% (growth of 6.8% in one month)
Done - 7.3% (growth of 6.1% in one month)

3/22 -
Initiated - 22.7% (growth of 10.6% in one month)
Done - 13.2% (growth of 6.9% in one month)

Of these numbers, the rate of initiated vaccines steadily rose at a rate of about 6%, before jumping through March to a rate of almost 11% growth. The rate of completed vaccines haven't grown at the same rate, but has also had steady month-to-month increases. Both have been accelerating over the last 90 days, and will continue to as vaccine shipments to the state continue to grow.

Now with this expansion, those rates should be expected to increase even faster.

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