Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The Louisiana Department of Health is coordinating the COVID-19 vaccine distribution effort in Louisiana. As more vaccines become available from the CDC, more individuals and groups will be offered a vaccination.

Limited amounts of COVID vaccines have been be available since Jan. 4, at some locations.

Patients must contact a participating location and make an appointment at the location. Do not arrive at a location without an appointment. LDH cannot make appointments for residents; only participating locations can.

On Monday, the LDH announced that vaccines would be available at two locations in Washington Parish.

Those locations are Creel’s Family Pharmacy, located at 26496 Highway 62 in Franklinton (phone number is 985-848-5555), and Sumrall’s Pharmacy, located at 30304 Highway 21 in Angie (phone number is 985-986-4433). Creel’s Family Pharmacy was one of the original recipients of the first batch of vaccines on Jan. 4, while Sumrall’s Pharmacy was one of the new locations announced by the LDH on Monday.

Supplies are extremely limited, and waiting lists will likely be utilized. These vaccines are available only for:

• Persons ages 70 years or older in the community,
• Outpatient clinic providers and clinic staff,
• Urgent care clinic providers and staff,
• Community care clinic providers and staff,
• Behavioral health providers and staff,
• Dialysis providers and patients,
• Home health service providers and recipients,
• Dental providers and staff, and
• Students, residents, faculty and staff of allied health schools (if not already receiving vaccine or in a plan to receive from their respective schools).

On Monday at 8:30 p.m., a staff member at Creel’s Family Pharmacy posted on Facebook that they were only taking appointments from their original waiting list. The post read:

“We did receive 100 vaccines today. If you were on the list, you are still on the list. We called some people on the list today and we will be scheduling appointments at various times throughout this week. We will call you from the phone number you provided for us. Please do not call us and jam our phone lines because it makes it very difficult for our regular customers to call and get their medicine filled. Unfortunately, we are not adding to the list at this time but if we get another shipment and our current list dwindles, we will add to the list. I will let you know when we start to add to the list so that you can add your name. There is some good news; they are starting to offer shots in many other locations and a few of the people we called today already had an appointment scheduled at a different location. This might help our list to dwindle even faster. We know many of you are anxious. Thank you for your patience.”

For more information about the vaccine and future locations, visit online at ldh.la.gov/covidvaccine.