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Leap comes amid 24-hour clinic in Cedar Rapids
Registered nurse Marla Berry administers the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine Dec. 15 to an employee at Mercy Medical Center in Cedar Rapids. (Liz Martin/The Gazette)
Both Linn and Johnson counties reported Sunday they saw their biggest one-day increases yet in the rates of administering COVID-19 vaccine doses and in the number of residents who have been fully vaccinated.
A total of 165,228 doses have been given to Linn County residents, a one-day increase of 9 percent — more than double the rate of any previous comparable period. The boost means that 69,387 Linn County residents are now fully vaccinated — also up 9 percent in a day. As of Sunday, about 38.45 percent of the county’s 16-and-up population has completed the series.
A total of 127,704 doses have been administered to Johnson County residents, an 8 percent daily increase — also a record. That brings the number of Johnson County residents who are fully vaccinated to 54,258 — an 11 percent daily increase, the county’s biggest leap so far. As of Sunday, about 43.65 percent of Johnson County’s 16-and-up population has completed the series.
The increases coincide with a 24-hour COVID-19 vaccine clinic that began at 9 a.m. Saturday and ended at 9 a.m. Sunday in downtown Cedar Rapids. Organizers said they expected to administer about 1,000 shots at the event.
Statewide, 848,053 Iowans have been fully vaccinated as of Sunday. That means a little over a third — 33.79 percent — of all Iowans age 16 and up have completed the series.
New cases
The state did not fully update its public health data Saturday, meaning that a 24-hour tally of new COVID-19 cases cannot be calculated.
However, over a 48-hour period from 11 a.m. Friday to 11 a.m. Sunday, the state added 706 new cases, bringing the total number of positive cases since the onset of the pandemic in Iowa to 359,966.
In that extended period, Linn County added 31 cases for a total of 20,301. Johnson County added 35 cases for a total of 14,052.
Of Iowans up to 17 — the best available measure of school-age children — 125 cases were added in the 48-hour period, for a total so far of 42,032.
No new COVID-19 deaths were reported Sunday, leaving the total number of Iowans who have died as a result of the disease at 5,881 over the last nearly 13 months.
Hospitalizations
The number of patients being treated for COVID-19 in Iowa hospitals remained near 200. Total COVID-19 hospitalizations dropped from 233 to 204. Patients in intensive care declined from 50 to 48, and those on ventilators rose from 19 to 20.
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