BATON ROUGE —Since March 2020, when Louisiana 211 was tapped to be the official COVID hotline by the Louisiana Department of Health, 211 usage has skyrocketed — going up more than 220% in 2020, compared to 2019.
The Louisiana 211 Statewide Network includes Capital Area United Way, United Way of Central Louisiana, United Way of Northeast Louisiana, United Way of Northwest Louisiana, United Way of Southwest Louisiana, VIA LINK/211 and the Louisiana Association of United Ways. This statewide network provides free and confidential information and referral services to all living within the 64 parishes of Louisiana, 24 hours a day and seven days a week. Services can be accessed by dialing 211 or texting a zip code to 898-211.
Here’s some data about 211 calls over the last year:
- More than 53% of the 290,002 calls in 2020 were from Louisianans seeking COVID-19 information, including mitigation information and testing sites (148,445 calls in total).
- Nearly 20% of the calls were from hurricane survivors seeking storm help (51,880 in total).
- Louisiana 211 provided 358,677 referrals in 2020 (many calls had multiple needs).
- Specialists relied on and connected callers with a network of more than 9,600 human service resources.
- In 2020, more than 93,000 people subscribed to Louisiana 211 key text words for instant replies with guidance from the State of Louisiana as part of the COVID and hurricane response efforts. Citizens can now text LACOVID to 898211 for high demand web links outlining testing and vaccine sites.