More than 600K Rhode Islanders now fully vaccinated against COVID-19 – WPRI.com

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) Rhode Island has reached a new milestone in its vaccination efforts as the states COVID-19 data continues to improve.

Data released Tuesday by the R.I. Department of Health shows 600,374 people are now fully vaccinated against the disease, while roughly 674,000 in total have received at least one dose.

The Health Department updated its weekly data on Tuesday, which showed decreases in new hospital admissions by week (from 35 last week to 22 this week) and new cases per 100,000 residents by week (from 21 to 18) while percent positivity by week remained at 0.5%.

The daily positivity rate also came out to 0.5%, with 23 new cases reported and more than 4,000 tests administered the previous day.

Another Rhode Islander has died after contracting the virus, bringing the states death toll to 2,723.

Nationwide, the death toll from COVID-19 surpassed 600,000 on Tuesday, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Rhode Island health officials say 38 people in the state remain hospitalized with the virus, with six currently in the intensive care unit and seven on ventilators.

On Tuesday, Governor Dan McKee also announced state officials will no longer hold scheduled COVID_19 briefings, but will instead have general media availability every week.

The next news conference is scheduled for Thursday at 1 p.m., but going forward they will be held every Tuesday at 2 p.m., according to the governors office.

12 News plans to stream the media availability right here on WPRI.com.

COVID-19 specific briefings will be held on an as-needed basis, officials added.

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More than 600K Rhode Islanders now fully vaccinated against COVID-19 - WPRI.com