JOHNSTON, Iowa (AP) — Iowa added another 123 coronavirus-related deaths on Wednesday, boosting the state's death toll to 3,021, according to state public health records.

The count continues to grow as hospitalization rates, although significantly lower than a week ago, remain high with 900 people hospitalized and 111 COVID-19 patients admitted in the previous 24 hours.

The Iowa Department of Public Health is transitioning to a new method of counting deaths that has the potential to add several hundred more cases to the state’s total in the coming weeks.

Public health data indicates the virus' spread may be slowing from it's highest point in mid-November as the daily number of positive cases has decreased since Nov. 17.

Over the past two weeks, the rolling average number of daily new cases has decreased by about 39%, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University.

There were 955.9 new cases per 100,000 people in Iowa over the past two weeks, which ranks 23rd in the country for new cases per capita. One in every 212 people in Iowa tested positive in the past week, Johns Hopkins said.

University of Iowa Health Care said Wednesday it is preparing to receive the state's first vaccine doses. The Iowa City-based health care organization participated in enrolling Iowans in the Pfizer-BioNTech clinical trials earlier this year and the organization said in a statement that UI Health Care employees will be among the first Iowans to be vaccinated.