Wisconsin’s Department of Health Services is stonewalling requests for answers about COVID booster shots in the state.
The Center Square has repeatedly reached out to DHS with questions about the number of COVID boosters administered, how booster shots are being counted, and whether people in Wisconsin will be considered “fully vaccinated” after two doses of the coronavirus vaccine, or if they will need a booster.
Wisconsin DHS has not responded.
DHS is silent about how many booster doses Wisconsin has received, how many booster doses doctors and nurses have administered, and how many booster doses the state hopes to deliver.
Brett Healy, president of the MacIver Institute for Public Policy, which has tracked coronavirus and vaccine numbers in the state since the beginning of the outbreak, says DHS’s silence is telling.
“Rather than be transparent and open with the public they claim to serve, DHS is, once again, refusing to answer some basic questions about a major policy change that taxpayers deserve to have answered first,” Healy told The Center Square. “We were told not that long ago by President Biden and others that if we all were vaccinated, the masks would go away, life would return to normal and we would not get Covid. Now, a short time later, [they are] telling us that a booster shot is needed.”
Wisconsin is offering booster shots. And DNS is asking people to get them.
“With three COVID-19 booster dose options now available, our national medical experts have given us additional tools to help stop the spread of the highly transmissible Delta variant and slow the spread of COVID-19 in communities throughout Wisconsin,” DHS Secretary-designee Karen Timberlake said in a news release last Friday. “We ask that eligible Wisconsinites be patient as it may take time for everyone who needs a booster dose to get one.”
All information for first and second doses is available at DHS’ website.
Healy has been critical of DHS in the past, and reported on data changes at the agency over the past year and a half. He said this is just one more example of not following the science.
“The public is right to expect our public servants to be forthright and honest, not push a pre-conceived narrative in an attempt to force us to do something,” Healy added. “If our public servants cannot or will not answer a few basic questions, it begs the question, what are they hiding?”
