Community COVID-19 Vaccination Site To Open In Racine

Gov. Tony Evers and the state Department of Health Services announced Friday the state’s third community-based vaccination clinic will open in Racine County on March 23.

The clinic will be located at the Regency Mall in the former Burlington Coat Factory space, and will be open 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. According to a statement, the clinic in Racine has the ability to administer up to 1,000 doses per day, but the number of doses administered will depend on how much vaccine Wisconsin receives from the federal government. The clinic will be prioritizing people who are age 65 and up, educators and child care staff on the local health department’s waitlist.

Rock and La Crosse counties also have community-based vaccination clinics.

Meanwhile, new reports of COVID-19 cases are averaging at around 390 cases per day in Wisconsin, based on the latest data published by DHS.

DHS reported 550 new cases of the disease Friday, bringing the average for the past seven days to 392 daily cases. Daily new cases have been falling since early January, when the average was about 3,000.

There were 2,805 negative tests reported Friday.

As COVID-19 cases in Wisconsin continue to decline, more of the state’s residents are being vaccinated against the disease.

A total of 1,895,402 doses of the coronavirus vaccine have been administered in Wisconsin as of Friday, with 36.7 percent of Wisconsinites age 65 and up fully vaccinated.

As of Friday, 667,193 people in Wisconsin, or 11.5 percent of the population, have been fully vaccinated.

Increasing rates of vaccination have provided a sense of hope after a yearlong pandemic that has claimed the lives of 6,525 people in Wisconsin. There was one new death from COVID-19 reported Friday.

Other DHS data from Friday include:

• 568,902 total cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began.
• 3,230,358 total tests administered, 2,661,456 of which have been negative since the pandemic began.
• 26,714 people have been hospitalized because of the disease, or 4.7 percent of all positive cases, since the pandemic began.
• Daily testing capacity remains at 59,273, though only 3,355 new test results were reported Friday.

Coronavirus rates vary from county to county. In order to track COVID-19 activity levels, DHS looks at the number of new cases per a county’s population over a 14-day period — and whether there’s an upward or downward trend in new cases. Activity levels range from “critically high,” “very high,” “high,” “medium,” to “low.”

As of Wednesday, DHS data showed the state had no counties with “critically high” or “very high” levels of COVID-19 activity. The majority of Wisconsin counties have “high” levels of activity. There are growing case trajectories in Waupaca, Marinette, Wood, Douglas, Waushara, Juneau and Iowa counties. Wisconsin’s overall COVID-19 activity level is “high.”

For more about COVID-19, visit Coronavirus in Wisconsin.