Was the New Orleans indoor vaccine mandate a successful policy? The order, first implemented last August, was controversial to many but one public health expert told WWL that it likely played some role in the city’s highest-in-the-state vaccination rate.
“There is a moderately substantial increase in vaccination from Jefferson to Orleans but if you step outside of the metro area you find really quite a substantial difference,” said Tulane Epidemiologist Dr. Susan Hassig who said the policy influenced those who frequented or lived in the city. “Providing an incentive to participate in a public health activity is usually one of our most useful things to do.”
Per Louisiana Department of Health data 68% of Orleans Parish is vaccinated compared to 65% of Jefferson, and 57% of St. Tammany. Other surrounding parishes range in the mid-40s to mid-50s. All numbers are based on 2018 population numbers, which have been impacted by COVID and hurricane-based migration. Currently, those four years old and younger are not eligible for a vaccine.
Opponents of the mandate, like Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, argued it violated civil rights and resulted in unnecessary economic damage to New Orleans.
Hassig said when it comes to the question of whether it directly led to a reduction in community spread, that needs more data to be answered comprehensively. Hassig suggested it likely did however because there is evidence that vaccination reduces your chances of contracting COVID, thus lowering the odds that you would go on to spread it. The vaccines were largely developed and tested to reduce the chances of being hospitalized with the disease, not to prevent infection.
While Hassig said the mandate did result in some early success last year in getting some vaccine-hesitant people off the fence, the campaign as a whole has largely stalled out. 65% of the New Orleans region and 50% of the Bayou and North Shore regions’ populations are vaccinated, a number that might remain stubbornly still as the number of new vaccinations from update to update trickles in at just a few thousand.
“I am afraid that it is probably where we may be for a while,” said Hassig who added that remaining skeptics will need dedicated resources to sway, and those resources are set to dry up. “I am afraid that we are probably going to see marginal improvements in vaccinations going forward in part because the extra funding from the federal government is not going to be there.”
An effort to include a new round of COVID funding was scrapped by Congress as the body moved to approve billions in military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine. Without a renewal of pandemic funds the programs that pay for vaccines for the uninsured, public testing and vaccination sites, and public education campaigns will cease.
