Acadiana just got a new weapon in the war against COVID-19: a newly-created online tool that provides parish-by-parish resources. The dashboard was announced by the Acadiana Planning Commission (APC) and offers information about COVID testing, vaccinations, and cases for all parishes in Acadiana which encompasses Evangeline, Acadia, St. Landry, St. Martin, Vermilion, Iberia, and Lafayette.
Features of the dashboard show COVID counts for each parish, a test center calendar and map, and vaccine locations.
Monique Boulet, CEO at the ACA, said the commission, along with Region Four medical director Dr. Tina Stefanski, are “working to get Acadiana to the other side of this pandemic as soon as possible.” She further said, “The only way to get there is to get correct information and to get the vaccine to as many people as will take it. We are hoping this tool is helpful in that effort.”
According to Boulet, the project came about from bi-weekly phone calls with local and state leaders, Offices of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, medial professionals, Economic Development personnel, as well as university leaders concerning the pandemic. There was a large amount of information being released to the public, so the online tool was created to help the public find all the resources at one simple location.
Ville Platte’s Dr. Chuck Aswell said of the online tool, “It’s a great resource for our people as it provides information at their fingertips. Hopefully, if we are immunized, we can go back to living a more normal life and keep our families out of harm’s way.”
Ville Platte Mayor Jennifer Vidrine praised the dashboard as being accessible, easy to read, and user-friendly. She said, “We are fortunate to have this dashboard to give us information about our parish and our surrounding parishes, so we can stay informed about COVID-19. I am very thankful to the Acadiana Planning Commission for developing this dashboard.”
The dashboard can be found at http://planacadiana.org/covid.
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Nancy Duplechain
Associate Editor