As of Monday, April 5, all Wisconsin residents 16 and older are eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. Gov. Evers and the Department of Health Services (DHS) announced the expanded eligibility in late March. According to Ballotpedia, as of April 8, all individuals 16 and older are eligible for a vaccine in at least some parts of 42 states.
As of April 6, Wisconsin had been allocated about 3.4 million COVID-19 vaccine doses from the federal government. In total, as of April 8, nearly 3.3 million vaccine doses had been administered in the state, and more than 1.25 million Wisconsin residents or 21.9 percent of the state’s population were fully vaccinated. Two-thirds of Wisconsinites aged 65 and older have received at least one dose. Gov. Evers and DHS previously announced on March 29 that one million Wisconsinites had been fully vaccinated.
As of April 8, Wisconsin had administered more than 3.3 million tests for COVID-19 since early 2020. Of those tests, about 580,000 were positive. About 6,660 people with COVID-19 have died in Wisconsin, representing 1.1 percent of all cases. Since the beginning of 2021, the seven-day average of positive tests out of total tests has declined, from 10.2 percent on January 1 to two percent on March 10. It has since risen to 3.8 percent.
All vaccine and testing data are from DHS.
FEMA Now Operating Three Vaccine Clinics in Wisconsin
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is now operating several vaccine clinics in Wisconsin. As we reported in a previous update, FEMA began staffing the vaccine clinic at the Wisconsin Center in downtown Milwaukee on March 15. On March 31, Gov. Evers and FEMA announced that the site would become a federal pilot clinic beginning April 6. The federal agency provides staffing and resources to administer up to 3,000 vaccines per day. As a federal pilot site, vaccine doses for the Milwaukee clinic now come directly from the federal government, instead of the state’s allocation.
As Gov. Evers announced one day before, FEMA also began operating a vaccination clinic at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison on April 7. The Alliant Energy Center has served as a mass testing site since early 2020 and began administering vaccines in late December. Now, the site can administer 1,400 vaccines per day.
On April 8, FEMA began staffing a COVID-19 vaccine clinic at Zorn Arena on the UW-Eau Claire campus. The arena has already been hosting a testing and vaccination site. With resources from FEMA, the site can administer 3,500 doses per day, and could eventually administer more depending on supply.
Four State-Run, Community-Based Vaccine Clinics in Operation; Fifth Site Opening Soon
On April 8, Gov. Evers and DHS announced that a fifth community-based vaccination clinic will open on April 13 at Wessman Arena on the UW-Superior campus. As with the state’s other community-based clinics, this site will be operated by AMI Expeditionary Healthcare along with state and local agencies. The state’s fourth site at Northcentral Technical College in Wausau opened on April 6. The Rock County community clinic opened in mid-February, while sites in La Crosse and Racine Counties opened in March.