By Tim Mastro

DOVER — All of the DE Wins! grand prize winners have been contacted and have claimed their prizes, the Delaware Division of Public Health announced on Friday.

The winners will be announced within the next two weeks, according to the DPH. The grand prizes for Delaware’s vaccine incentive program were $302,000 and two low-digit license plates.

Since the DE Wins! program launched on May 25, 22 individuals have claimed their prizes which included $5,000, prize packages, vacation packages, Delaware State Park passes and tickets to events. Additionally, some of the businesses offering incentives will continue to do so. A list of winners and participating businesses can be found at DEWins.org.

The state had set aside $5 million for the campaign and Gov. John Carney said in May he anticipated the program will be covered with federal funds.

DE Wins! ended on Tuesday with the drawings for the grand prizes taking place on Wednesday. Delaware then achieved President Joe Biden’s goal of vaccinating 70% adults by July 4 on Thursday.

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 70.2% of Delawareans 18 years or older have received at least one dose of the vaccine. Delaware is one of 16 states and Washington to surpass the 70% goal so far.

The CDC data includes Delawareans vaccinated out of state and at such sites as Veterans Affairs offices and Dover Air Force Base, which do not report their data to the DPH.

As of Thursday at 11:59 p.m., 449,746 Delawareans have been fully vaccinated, according to the DPH’s data. Of those the DPH said, there have been 405 breakthrough cases of COVID-19, less than 0.01% of those fully vaccinated.

A breakthrough case is defined by the DPH “as testing positive for COVID-19 after an individual has been fully vaccinated for two weeks or more – although it does not mean that the infection actually occurred after vaccination.”

The DPH reported one new COVID-19-related death in Friday’s update — a 74-year-old from New Castle County. This brings the total number of COVID-19-related deaths to 1,695, as of Thursday at 6 p.m.

Two deaths were announced in the last week and both individuals were unvaccinated, according to the DPH.

There were 50 new positive cases of COVID-19 in Friday’s update, bringing the overall number to 109,820. The number of individuals hospitalized with the virus decreased by eight compared to the day prior, down to 31 with three cases considered critical.

Twenty-two cases of COVID-19 variants were identified this week in the DPH lab of 41 specimens sequenced. Two cases were the new delta variant which originated in India while three were the gamma variant from Brazil.