The vaccination rate for residents of Louisiana is slowly creeping up.

As of Thursday, nearly 40 percent of Louisianians have been fully vaccinated for the coronavirus. For reference, the national average is about 51 percent.

The Louisiana Department of Health reports that 1,836,731 people across the state, or about 39.51 percent of the total population, have received all doses of their vaccine.

That same data shows that 2,213,602 people, or about 47.62 percent of the state, had gotten at least one dose.

Another 65,309 doses of the vaccine were administered statewide since Monday. About 56 percent of those doses were given to people getting a shot for the first time.

Yesterday, the state reported 5,550 new infections and 58 additional deaths. The positivity rate for recent tests is 11.26 percent.

One small bit of good news is that hospitalizations have dropped slightly for the first time since the start of the recent COVID surge, but still, 3,013 were still hospitalized Thursday. Of those patients, 476 were on ventilators.

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