Sixteenth Street to participate in federal vaccination program

The federal government has selected Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers to be part of a COVID-19 vaccination program targeting community health centers, the Milwaukee-area healthcare provider said Tuesday.

Sixteenth Street will receive direct federal allocations of COVID-19 vaccines and partner with Ascension Wisconsin to expand access to the shots on Milwaukee’s south side.

“Because the Hispanic community we serve continues to be disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, it’s critical that we get more shots in arms as quickly as possible,”Liz Claudio, vice president of operations at Sixteenth Street, said in a statement. “Partnering with Ascension Wisconsin gives us the manpower we need to dramatically increase the number of community members we can vaccinate and work to minimize the racial and ethnic vaccination disparities.”

Under the partnership, hundreds of Ascension healthcare workers will volunteer to help the effort by staffing 22 clinic positions a day, five days a week, over the next six weeks. The additional staff will be able to vaccinate up to 2,000 people a week.

Wisconsin vaccinators administered 1,739,995 doses of COVID-19 vaccine through Monday.

Per state data, 18.7 percent of the state’s population, or 1,088,339 Wisconsinites, have received first doses, and 10.5 percent, or 613,542 Wisconsinites, have completed the vaccine series.

The Department of Health Services reported 463 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, for a total of 567,334.

Twenty-nine more reported deaths bought the state’s death toll to 6,510 people.

An additional 1,496 Wisconsinites were tested for COVID-19, for a total of 3,218,107.

DHS considers 6,552 cases active.

The seven-day average for daily new cases is 391, up 20 from Monday and down 184 from a week ago.

The seven-day average for daily new deaths is 10, the same as Monday and down eight from a week ago.

As of Monday, the seven-day positivity rate by test was 2.2 percent, the same as Sunday and up 0.1 percentage points from a week earlier, per preliminary data from DHS.

The Wisconsin Hospital Association reported 244 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, down 11 from Monday and 27 from a week ago.

Sixty-three were in intensive care units, up two from Monday and down eight from a week ago.