BATON ROUGE – East Baton Rouge Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome wants more locals to make use of COVID-19 health opportunities and in an effort to lead by example, the mayor publicly received her first dose of a COVID vaccine Wednesday (Feb. 10) morning at 9:30 a.m.

Watch the Mayor receive her first dose of the vaccine in the video player below.

The vaccine was administered by OLOL personnel in the Willie Hawkins Community Center at OLOL's North LSU Health Clinic on Airline Highway.

After the shot, she smiled and said it was relatively painless.

Mayor Broome has expressed concern that many Black citizens have not even been tested for COVID-19, despite the fact that individuals of African American descent are passing away from COVID-related complications at an alarming rate.

This motivated the mayor to partner with Pennington Biomedical Research Center to research and address the issue of why a disproportionate number of African Americans have yet to be tested for COVID-19 despite the fact that a significant number of this population continues to succumb to COVID-related complications.

The research is made possible by a collaboration between Pennington Biomedical Research Center and the Louisiana Clinical and Translational Science Center (LA CaTS) in the securing of a $1.8 million grant through the National Institutes of Health.

Researchers are working with Mayor Broome's HealthyBR initiative, to test 2,000 adults in the Parish by means of a less invasive saliva testing method.

Testing begins next Wednesday (Feb. 10) at the same location where Mayor Broome received her first vaccine shot, the LSU Health Baton Rouge North Clinic at 5439 Airline Highway. 

Testing hours at each site will be 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays and 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Saturdays. 

Click here for additional details, including a list of other testing sites.

Additional testing information can also be found at: www.GeauxGetTested.org and www.pbrc.edu/clinical-trials.