State's Top Public Health Official Continues to Urge Wisconsinites to Get Vaccinated

Monday, August 2nd, 2021 -- 11:00 AM

(WRN) The state's top public health official continues to urge Wisconsinites to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

Deputy Health Services Secretary Julie Willems Van Dijk was on WKOW's "Capitol City Sunday."

"If we don't get these disease transmission rates down, we are likely to see a variant that is going to be much more lethal than the ones we've seen, kill many more people."

"And I don't want us sitting here, six months, twelve months from now, saying 'well man, if we'd only know if we'd gotten vaccinated we could have prevented that.'"

"Ninety-eight-point-four percent of the cases in Wisconsin in 2021 are in people who were not vaccinated. So vaccines are protecting people. They're safe."

"That's 98-point-4 percent of the cases of COVD-19 in Wisconsin . . . are in people who were not vaccinated. But that type of percentage follows through hospitalizations and through deaths as well."

About 60 percent of eligible adults in Wisconsin are fully vaccinated. But nearly half of the state, including kids under 12 who remain ineligible, are unvaccinated.

More than 98 percent of COVID-19 cases this year have been among the unvaccinated.  Vaccination rates of eligible adults vary widely by county in Wisconsin. Dane, Door and Bayfied counties are at or above 70 percent fully vaccinated.

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