Jeramey Jannene
WI Daily

New One-Day COVID-19 Case Record As Hospitalizations Surge 181% In 30 Days

Records set for new cases, positive case rate, active hospitalizations and rolling death total.

By - Oct 15th, 2020 04:19 pm
COVID-19. Credit: U.S. Army.

COVID-19. Credit: U.S. Army.

State officials don’t have an opimistic tone for what comes next in Wisconsin’s fight against COVID-19.

“We know this is going to get worse before it gets better,” said Department of Health Services Secretary-designee Andrea Palm in a media briefing Thursday afternoon. “Our numbers are high and they’re growing rapidly.”

Wisconsin recorded 3,747 new cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours. As of three days ago the state had never recorded over 3,000 cases in a single day, but has now eclipsed the mark in each of the days since. The state never eclipsed 2,000 cases until September 17th. In the 197 days prior to that, the state had only eclipsed 1,000 cases in a single day 14 times.

What started in September with a surge of cases in the state’s younger residents now is afflicting all age groups. “What we are seeing now in the state of Wisconsin and have been seeing in all age groups is very intense community spreads,” said Palm. Fifty-seven of the state’s 72 counties meet the state’s threshold for “very high” spread.

A total of 20,495 cases were recorded in the past seven days, a new high. The seven-day case high before September, and now October, brought a surge of cases with it was 6,512 for the week of July 26th.

Thursday’s record case total comes from 15,202 processed tests. The seven-day testing total fell to 93,511, up from 66,518 a month ago. A high of 99,920 tests was recorded for the week ending August 6th.

The increase in testing hasn’t resulted in the percentage of people testing positive falling. The seven and 14-day positive case rates now stand at 21.92% and 20.39%, both are record highs. The figure measures the percentage of tests that indicate a new case of COVID-19. The 14-day figure hit a low of 2.69% on June 19th.

Officials have looked for the positive case rate to trend downward to indicate a slowing spread of disease and sufficient testing. Multiple public health benchmarks call for the positive case figure to be sustained under five percent.

“Because of the course of this virus we can expect to see an increase in hospitalizations as long as we see an increase in daily new cases,” said Palm, talking about days and weeks in the future. But hospitalizations are already setting records now.

The Wisconsin Hospital Association reported 1,043 active hospitalizations on Thursday, a record high. The total is up 26 from Wednesday and up 136 from a week ago. Thirty days ago the figure stood at 370.

DHS reports that 138 people were newly hospitalized in the past 24 hours, bringing the outbreak total to 8,892.

“We need to do all we can right now to break that transmission, to stop the spread”, said Palm. “But it will take time before we see the fruits of that labor in reduced hospitalizations and reduced community spread.” Wearing masks and restricting gatherings is part of that. She said there is no doubt that masks slow the spread of the disease. “My mask protects you, your mask protects me,” said Palm. “The evidence is clear.”

The ultimate lagging indicator of the disease’s spread, death, is increasing in absolute numbers.

DHS reported 17 new deaths, bringing the statewide total to 1,553. There have been 554 deaths recorded in Milwaukee County. An average of 11.1 deaths per day have been reported across the state over the past 30 days, the highest average on record. A month ago the rolling average was 6.3.

As evidence of the outstate spread, in just the past month Milwaukee County has gone from having a runaway lead on the worst all-time per-capita spread of the disease to the 10th-worst. And it’s done so while the spread of the disease accelerated in the county.

Brown County has recorded 4,808.9 cases per 100,000 residents (up from 4,694.1). Menominee County is next with 4,427.2 cases per 100,000 residents. Oconto County has recorded 4,304.3 cases per 100,000 residents (up from 4,233.2).

Shawano, Forest, Kewaunee, Calumet, Winnebago and Outagamie counties are the remaining counties leading Milwaukee.

According to DHS data, 3,601.7 out of every 100,000 Milwaukee County residents have tested positive for COVID-19 (up from 3,550.3) since the outbreak began.

The statewide average of cases per 100,000 residents rose to 2,807.9 (up from 2,743.1). Wisconsin has recorded a per-capita rate of 627.9 per 100,000 in the past two weeks according to the DHS activity level report released Wednesday.

Charts and Maps

Data from DHS.

Data from DHS.

Confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths by gender

Data from DHS.

Confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths by race

Data from DHS.

Confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths by ethnicity

Data from DHS.

Cases and deaths by county

Number of confirmed cases Number of negatives* Number of probable cases Number of deaths** Cases per 100,000 people (counties) Deaths per 100,000 people (counties) Case fatality percentage****
Adams 10/15/2020 340 4,622 20 4 1,658.90 19.5 1.20%
Ashland 10/15/2020 210 3,568 10 3 1,323.80 18.9 1.40%
Barron 10/15/2020 701 10,313 27 6 1,527.90 13.1 0.90%
Bayfield 10/15/2020 166 3,626 10 1 1,091.80 6.6 0.60%
Brown 10/15/2020 12,519 80,201 249 82 4,808.90 31.5 0.70%
Buffalo 10/15/2020 191 2,884 4 2 1,413.90 14.8 1.00%
Burnett 10/15/2020 255 3,157 14 6 1,650.80 38.8 2.40%
Calumet 10/15/2020 2,094 11,805 62 10 4,067.90 19.4 0.50%
Chippewa 10/15/2020 959 16,759 29 2 1,493.30 3.1 0.20%
Clark 10/15/2020 599 6,303 54 9 1,724.20 25.9 1.50%
Columbia 10/15/2020 1,266 17,765 59 4 2,216.10 7 0.30%
Crawford 10/15/2020 268 4,773 7 0 1,618.80 0 0.00%
Dane 10/15/2020 12,072 212,443 521 46 2,284.20 8.7 0.40%
Dodge 10/15/2020 2,806 25,390 78 19 3,145.60 21.3 0.70%
Door 10/15/2020 563 7,978 38 4 2,007.10 14.3 0.70%
Douglas 10/15/2020 655 9,264 6 1 1,492.90 2.3 0.20%
Dunn 10/15/2020 797 9,517 35 1 1,779.90 2.2 0.10%
Eau Claire 10/15/2020 2,508 26,463 21 9 2,437.50 8.7 0.40%
Florence 10/15/2020 149 1,045 2 4 3,370.30 90.5 2.70%
Fond du Lac 10/15/2020 3,247 26,644 91 16 3,141.10 15.5 0.50%
Forest 10/15/2020 388 2,186 6 10 4,225.70 108.9 2.60%
Grant 10/15/2020 1,538 14,615 54 23 2,936.60 43.9 1.50%
Green 10/15/2020 760 9,527 20 3 2,061.60 8.1 0.40%
Green Lake 10/15/2020 536 4,667 85 2 2,808.00 10.5 0.40%
Iowa 10/15/2020 335 6,493 26 1 1,407.60 4.2 0.30%
Iron 10/15/2020 158 1,624 14 1 2,703.60 17.1 0.60%
Jackson 10/15/2020 247 6,901 5 1 1,196.50 4.8 0.40%
Jefferson 10/15/2020 2,112 22,059 78 9 2,494.20 10.6 0.40%
Juneau 10/15/2020 566 10,036 4 3 2,103.50 11.1 0.50%
Kenosha 10/15/2020 4,194 41,077 456 69 2,493.00 41 1.60%
Kewaunee 10/15/2020 851 4,713 22 4 4,122.30 19.4 0.50%
La Crosse 10/15/2020 3,657 29,008 154 11 3,090.40 9.3 0.30%
Lafayette 10/15/2020 436 4,099 8 1 2,582.50 5.9 0.20%
Langlade 10/15/2020 588 4,210 5 4 2,973.20 20.2 0.70%
Lincoln 10/15/2020 484 6,092 18 4 1,701.70 14.1 0.80%
Manitowoc 10/15/2020 1,940 16,337 212 7 2,417.30 8.7 0.40%
Marathon 10/15/2020 3,016 22,986 196 31 2,238.40 23 1.00%
Marinette 10/15/2020 1,349 11,219 83 9 3,295.20 22 0.70%
Marquette 10/15/2020 470 3,808 14 2 3,056.30 13 0.40%
Menominee 10/15/2020 194 2,965 0 0 4,427.20 0 0.00%
Milwaukee 10/15/2020 34,017 277,992 2,117 554 3,601.70 58.7 1.60%
Monroe 10/15/2020 853 11,560 18 3 1,854.40 6.5 0.40%
Oconto 10/15/2020 1,634 10,623 80 6 4,304.30 15.8 0.40%
Oneida 10/15/2020 839 10,258 12 5 2,336.20 13.9 0.60%
Outagamie 10/15/2020 7,105 44,684 338 47 3,865.60 25.6 0.70%
Ozaukee 10/15/2020 1,740 20,421 177 21 1,969.20 23.8 1.20%
Pepin 10/15/2020 85 1,657 3 0 1,156.60 0 0.00%
Pierce 10/15/2020 559 8,959 250 7 1,342.60 16.8 1.30%
Polk 10/15/2020 375 10,097 14 2 854.2 4.6 0.50%
Portage 10/15/2020 2,065 15,386 53 15 2,920.00 21.2 0.70%
Price 10/15/2020 267 3,274 7 0 1,933.70 0 0.00%
Racine 10/15/2020 5,951 71,891 609 101 3,048.60 51.7 1.70%
Richland 10/15/2020 350 6,363 13 6 1,976.10 33.9 1.70%
Rock 10/15/2020 3,634 39,475 210 37 2,267.50 23.1 1.00%
Rusk 10/15/2020 109 2,444 8 1 750 6.9 0.90%
Sauk 10/15/2020 1,373 21,662 62 6 2,190.30 9.6 0.40%
Sawyer 10/15/2020 304 5,026 1 1 1,834.80 6 0.30%
Shawano 10/15/2020 1,773 10,942 11 8 4,297.10 19.4 0.50%
Sheboygan 10/15/2020 2,828 26,452 98 20 2,469.50 17.5 0.70%
St. Croix 10/15/2020 1,332 18,901 85 9 1,510.70 10.2 0.70%
Taylor 10/15/2020 324 3,337 6 6 1,574.30 29.2 1.90%
Trempealeau 10/15/2020 821 6,929 19 2 2,799.00 6.8 0.20%
Vernon 10/15/2020 401 7,752 5 3 1,324.00 9.9 0.70%
Vilas 10/15/2020 388 4,989 18 3 1,791.70 13.9 0.80%
Walworth 10/15/2020 2,989 25,896 224 36 2,912.80 35.1 1.20%
Washburn 10/15/2020 168 3,332 9 2 1,059.70 12.6 1.20%
Washington 10/15/2020 3,561 27,634 193 40 2,647.90 29.7 1.10%
Waukesha 10/15/2020 9,723 91,218 861 100 2,439.00 25.1 1.00%
Waupaca 10/15/2020 1,806 11,511 143 28 3,491.10 54.1 1.60%
Waushara 10/15/2020 710 7,580 8 3 2,922.10 12.3 0.40%
Winnebago 10/15/2020 6,831 45,418 278 48 4,033.80 28.3 0.70%
Wood 10/15/2020 1,226 17,039 70 9 1,656.20 12.2 0.70%

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