GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – In the first week of a $100 incentive program for Wisconsinites to roll up their sleeves for the COVID-19 vaccine, the state saw it’s highest number of doses administered since mid-June.
DHS reports 67,893 total shots were administered last week. That’s the most since the week of June 13th. Prevea Health CEO Dr. Ashok Rai says he’s not sure if the incentives are playing a roll, but he’s excited to see the trend going up.
“It’s good news that we’re administering more vaccine and hopefully it’s an upward trend that continues to get the rest of the state vaccinated,” Rai told WTAQ News. “Whatever works at this point right now to get people vaccinated, we’re all in favor of it…I hope every incentive out there, whether it’s a cream puff or $100 VISA card or whatever it may be, will help. But the bottom line is also educating people so they know they’re making the right decisions for themselves.”
As for the target vaccination percentage, Rai says it’s hard to actually know even a ballpark number at this point.
“Initially we were looking at 60-70%, but with Delta, that number needs to get higher. It could be up to 80% that need to get vaccinated to get full control of the pandemic,” Rai said. “But it’s usually one of those things that you see in the rearview mirror. When you’ve controlled the pandemic is when you know you’re there.”
Rai also says the virus will likely stick around in some form or another. But that’s all the more reason for people to get vaccinated.
“Getting more and more people vaccinated so we aren’t dealing with more variants and huge outbreaks like we are now, I think is the end goal right now,” Rai explained. “A variant is just an error when a virus reproduces. It reproduces on it’s own, it replicates or just keeps making more copies of itself. A variant is an error in that copying. It only happens when it replicates. And it only replicates in people who are infected. So the more people who get vaccinated, the less people get infected, and the less variants we have to deal with.”
As of Monday, 54.6% of Wisconsin residents had received at least one dose and 51.3% had completed their vaccine series.
