COVID-19 testing and vaccination services at the Alliant Energy Center will end April 3, according to a City of Madison press release.
The Alliant Energy Center clinic, which provides both rapid antigen and PCR COVID-19 testing, has been in operation since May 2020 and has administered over 111,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses and 450,000 COVID-19 tests. The move to close the site is a response to dropping cases, hospitalizations and deaths in Dane County since January’s Omicron surge, according to the release.
The Alliant Energy Center was shut down in June 2021 due to declining case counts and then reopened again in January 2022 when there was an Omicron surge, according to associate professor of Population Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin Ajay Sethi.
Sethi said the upcoming closure is simply PHMDC looking to use their resources in the most cost-effective manner possible.
“If there is another surge, which would likely be caused by a new variant, Public Health will surely re-evaluate whether to re-open services at the Alliant Energy Center,” Sethi said in an email statement to The Badger Herald.
The seven day average of COVID-19 cases in Dane County is currently at 326 cases, down from 18,799 in Jan. 16.
Sethi said this is an appropriate time to end the COVID-19 services offered at the Alliant Energy Center because the county was at a point similar to June 2021, which was when the clinic shut down the first time.
Sethi pointed out that the community’s needs can still be met by testing and vaccination services supplied by the South Madison clinic. Additionally, U.S. residential households are able to order four free at-home tests through USPS.
Recent antiviral COVID-19 treatment proving effective against Omicron
Dane County has mobile vaccination clinics as well as locations such as Sun Prairie Public Library, DeForest Public Library and East Washington Avenue Clinic providing COVID-19 vaccination services.
PHMDC thanked those who helped make the Alliant Energy Center clinic a possibility. The clinic is a group that includes the Alliant Energy staff, FEMA, the Wisconsin National Guard, the Department of Health Services, AMI Expeditionary Healthcare, Accelerated Clinical Laboratories and other city and county departments.
