As the university continues giving COVID-19 vaccinations, the university is set to partner with the Thibodaux Regional Health System to give more vaccinations to Nicholls State University students today on March 16 from 12:30 p.m. to 4 p.m.

The vaccines from Thibodaux Regional are for students who are 18 years old and older with conditions such as asthma, cancer, kidney disease, high blood pressure, heart conditions, cystic fibrosis, sickle cell disease, smoking, down syndrome, obesity, diabetes and other conditions that may be similar. 

Nicholls Communications Director Jerad David sent out an email to students with links and numbers to schedule an appointment. Students who qualify for those conditions must call 985-493-4335 in advance for an appointment. 

“Listed conditions like cancer and heart disease and other conditions that will hamper your ability to fight this virus. The interesting addition that came last week and that was my subtle way of telling the masses in my message last week, I added a link to the CDC’s BMI calculator,” David said. 

David encourages everyone to check out the BMI link before getting vaccinated as one may qualify for one of the conditions listed above. 

“If it means we can help get people the vaccine earlier, we want people to look at them,” David said. 

David said in the upcoming weeks, there should be another vaccination on campus for those who just took their first dose last week. 

“They’ve committed to within the next 14 days or so that they want to hold a mass vaccination event on campus. It will likely be held in Shavier gym, that’s not confirmed yet, but it’s a large area and they can work through people spread out,” David said.  

David said in the next 14 days, the governor may move us to a different tier where all higher ed could possibly receive the vaccine, but for now, it will just be those in the 18 years or older age group with the conditions listed above. 

He said so far, the university has been able to keep up with the demand as the governor has added to his current tier. As of this week, David said the university has administered a total of 1,194 vaccines. 

Out of that number, 418 people have been completely vaccinated with both doses and 358 people received at least the first dose last Friday. This comes to a total of 776 people. 

By April 9, David said that the 776 people will be fully vaccinated.

“The way we’ve had to manage it and luckily, biology has the freezers that are capable of keeping the temperature below where the vaccine needs to be frozen,” David said.  

David said the batch of vaccines left in the freezer are specifically for the next group who need to receive their second dose of them. 

“Once that batch is gone for the people who got that first round, the shots that we have in the freezer are going to be completely depleted,” David said.  

In the upcoming weeks, the Louisiana Department of Health region three and the Louisiana National Guard will assist providing vaccines to campus. 

For students who can’t make it to today’s vaccination at Thibodaux Regional, they will be offering additional appointments on March 19 and March 23. 

Another place students can try to get a vaccination with is with the Life Coast Community Health Center. Students can call 985-492-6170 to schedule an appointment. 

“The intention was never for Nicholls State University to be in the vaccine administration business. Our folks in the university health services and college of nursing in addition to Mr. Brian Clausen, they’ve done a phenomenal job at coming up with a process to manage these vaccines in a super short time period,” David said.