State vax total tops 200G

More than 200,000 people in the Bay State have received at least the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to state health officials on Thursday.

The state’s COVID-19 weekly vaccine report on Thursday showed that 206,190 people have received the first dose of the two-shot treatment, and 32,984 people have received both doses of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines.

The state has administered 69% of the total doses shipped to the state, up from 43% last week.

Meanwhile, the state’s top election official is proposing communities set up COVID19 vaccination clinics next to polling places during upcoming elections.

State health officials on Thursday reported 74 new coronavirus deaths and 5,545 new cases, yet another high count of cases while officials keep a close eye on the recent decline in COVID-19 hospitalizations.

Hospitalizations rose by 26 patients on Thursday, but overall hospitalizations have gone down by more than 200 in the last week.

“For the past 10 days or so we’ve actually seen a leveling out and even a very modest decline, but a decline in our hospitalization rates,”

Gov. Charlie Baker said at a press conference.

“Now before we get too excited about that, we need to remember that we also saw a continuing increase in the growth in our daily case counts over that same period of time,” he added. “And usually those two things translate… one translates into the other. It’s usually later.”

A total of 930 staff and students in Massachusetts schools have tested positive for coronavirus in the last week, according to state data. This week’s tally represents an increase of 499 cases from last week’s total of 431 cases, which reflected two weeks of winter break.