Minnesota Vaccine Pilot Program Spots for First Week Filled

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Minnesota health officials on Wednesday announced that all 6,000 spots in a coronavirus vaccine pilot program reserved for Minnesotans over 65 have been filled after issues with the registration website caused it to crash on Tuesday.

The 12,000 doses reserved for the program this week — half of which are reserved for teachers and child care workers — were diverted to the program from the state’s weekly allocation of 60,000 doses from the federal government. Nine sites will begin administering the limited doses to the newly eligible group on Thursday.

State officials said the significant demand for an extremely limited supply of doses for the program caused long wait times and issues with the website as seniors attempted to make appointments on Tuesday.

Health officials on Wednesday reported 34 more deaths and 1,237 new daily infections from the virus, bringing the state to 5,979 deaths and 449,492 cases since the beginning of the pandemic.

According to The COVID Tracking Project, the seven-day rolling average of the positivity rate in Minnesota declined over the past two weeks, going from 6.71% on Jan. 5 to 5.2% on Tuesday. For Minnesota, the AP calculates the rate by dividing new cases by test encounters using data from The COVID Tracking Project, but state health departments are calculating positivity rate differently across the country.