Over 200 Wisconsin Healthcare Workers Receive Coronavirus Vaccine

Thursday, December 17th, 2020 -- 9:00 AM

(AP) Nearly 200 health care workers in Wisconsin had been vaccinated for COVID-19 as of Wednesday, the state’s top health official said.

Department of Health Services Secretary Andrea Palm also said no spike in coronavirus cases were reported following Thanksgiving weekend, but she urged people to continue to remain vigilant with Christmas and New Year’s approaching.

“We feel pretty good about where our numbers are post-Thanksgiving, recognizing that we are still as a general proposition way too high,” Palm said. “Our hospitals are still strained, they’re still having significant staffing shortages, we’re still seeing too many deaths.”

Wisconsin’s case numbers spiked in mid-November and have been declining since. More than 442,000 people in the state have tested positive for COVID-19 and there have been 4,122 deaths from the disease since the pandemic began. Wisconsin’s death count is the 23rd highest in the country overall and the 31st highest per capita, at 76 deaths per 100,000 people, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Over the past two weeks, the rolling average number of daily new cases in Wisconsin has decreased by 370, a drop of 8.7%. The new cases per capita over the past two weeks in Wisconsin is the 22nd highest rate in the country, according to Johns Hopkins. Wisconsin in November ranked as high as fourth nationwide in new cases per capita.

Although the numbers are trending in the right direction and the vaccine is slowly being given to health care workers, Palm stressed that people still need to wear masks, maintain social distancing, frequently wash their hands and avoid gatherings.

“We need to protect our frontline healthcare workers,” she said.  The state’s first round of vaccine is going to health care workers and nursing home residents.  Wisconsin received its first shipment of about 10,000 Pfizer vaccine on Monday at two regional hubs. On Tuesday four other hubs received 22,000 doses and on Wednesday another 18,000 doses were arriving at two more hubs, Palm said.

As of Wednesday, the state’s immunization registry showed that 192 people had received the vaccine, Palm said. Information about how many people have been vaccinated will also eventually be reported on the state Department of Health Services’ website, she said.  The state does not yet know how much more of the Pfizer vaccine it will receive next week, Palm said.

The state is anticipating a shipment next week of about 100,000 doses of vaccine made by Moderna, which does not require the ultra-cold storage that the Pfizer vaccine does and can be sent directly to vaccinators rather than distributed through the regional hubs.

Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.