7,777 New COVID-19 Cases, Another Record High

Before this week, Wisconsin had never reported over 7,000 new COVID-19 cases in a single day. Now it’s eclipsed the mark four times.

The Department of Health Services reported 7,777 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday afternoon from 18,510 processed tests.

The seven-day case total moved to a new record high of 45,100. September, when Wisconsin’s surge started, accounted for 46,671 cases in its entirety.

“COVID-19 is everywhere in our state. It is bad everywhere, and it is getting every worse everywhere. It is straining hospitals and people are dying,” said DHS deputy secretary Julie Willems Van Dijk during a press briefing Thursday afternoon.

“Statewide only eight percent of [intensive care unit] beds are available,” said Willems Van Dijk. The state has set a new record for active hospitalizations in 11 of the past 13 days.

“There is no safe gathering right now unfortunately,” said Dr. Ryan Westergaard, Chief Medical Officer of the DHS Bureau of Communicable Diseases.

The seven-day positive case rate, the percentage of tests that confirm a new case of the disease and proxy for if the disease’s spread is growing or slowing, stands at a record 36.33%. The 14-day average at a record 33.85%. The 14-day average set 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 rate figure to be sustained under five percent.

DHS reported 274 people were newly hospitalized in the past 24 hours in its daily data release. A total of 14,045 people have required hospitalization since the outbreak began, 1,491 in the past week.

“The most important way to prevent this is to prevent the patients from needing the care in the first place,” said Willems Van Dijk of hospital capacity issues. She said the biggest issue hospitals are reporting is staffing shortages caused by having employees quarantined.

“I believe we are getting to the point where hospitals are strained and likely to run out of staff before they run out of physical space,” said Westergaard.

Westergaard said earlier this week that hospitals are reaching a “tipping point” where they might not be able to treat everyone that needs care.

The Wisconsin Hospital Association reported Thursday that a record 2,077 people were actively hospitalized with a confirmed case of the disease, a decrease of 25 from Wednesday’s record high, but an increase of 303 over a week. Thirty days ago the total was 1,043. Friday’s data release, scheduled for 3:30 p.m., was not available by the time of publication.

A record 15 patients were in the Alternate Care Facility in West Allis.

DHS reported 58 deaths Friday. A total of 2,573 Wisconsin residents have died as a result of the virus, including 636 in Milwaukee County.

An average of 33.57 deaths per day have been reported over the past 30 days. Thirty days ago the rolling average was 10.87.

Since September, Milwaukee County has gone from having the worst per-capita outbreak to the 20th worst in the state, even as its case and hospitalization load has surged to record levels.

Menominee County has recorded 10,314.9 cases per 100,000 residents (up from 9,972.6). Shawano County has recorded 7,753.3 cases per 100,000 residents (up from 7,624.8). Brown, Oconto, Dodge, Forest, Winnebago, Fond du Lac, Kewaunee, Calumet, Langlade, Outagamie, Waushara, Waupaca, Sheboygan, Florence, Marinette, Marquette, Sheboygan and Marathon counties are the remaining counties leading Milwaukee.

According to DHS data, 5,741.4 out of every 100,000 Milwaukee County residents have tested positive for COVID-19 since the outbreak began (up from 5,625.2).

The statewide average of cases per 100,000 residents rose to 5,209.5 (up from 5,075). Wisconsin has recorded a per-capita rate of 1,310.6 cases per 100,000 residents in the past two weeks according to the DHS activity level report released Wednesday.

Charts and Maps

Confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths by gender

Confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths by race

Confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths by ethnicity

Cases and deaths by county

	Number of confirmed cases	Number of negatives*	Number of probable cases	Number of deaths †	Number of probable deaths ‡	Cases per 100,000 people (counties)	Deaths per 100,000 people (counties)	Case fatality percentage ††
Adams	821	5,581	59	6	1	4,005.90	29.3	0.70%
Ashland	476	4,659	18	5	0	3,000.70	31.5	1.10%
Barron	2,184	13,590	43	29	0	4,760.20	63.2	1.30%
Bayfield	487	4,583	14	3	0	3,203.10	19.7	0.60%
Brown	19,462	99,907	464	119	2	7,475.90	45.7	0.60%
Buffalo	538	3,514	11	3	0	3,982.50	22.2	0.60%
Burnett	500	4,197	20	7	0	3,236.90	45.3	1.40%
Calumet	3,456	14,758	114	20	1	6,713.80	38.9	0.60%
Chippewa	3,358	20,857	40	36	2	5,228.90	56.1	1.10%
Clark	1,579	7,713	112	24	3	4,545.10	69.1	1.50%
Columbia	2,576	20,836	179	9	1	4,509.20	15.8	0.30%
Crawford	616	5,546	7	4	0	3,720.90	24.2	0.60%
Dane	21,055	255,636	615	61	2	3,983.90	11.5	0.30%
Dodge	6,370	30,909	332	52	4	7,140.90	58.3	0.80%
Door	1,333	10,309	95	10	0	4,752.10	35.6	0.80%
Douglas	1,255	11,443	12	1	0	2,860.50	2.3	0.10%
Dunn	1,840	12,690	68	1	0	4,109.30	2.2	0.10%
Eau Claire	5,542	33,668	80	35	4	5,386.20	34	0.60%
Florence	268	1,249	14	10	0	6,062.00	226.2	3.70%
Fond du Lac	6,952	32,536	256	33	1	6,725.20	31.9	0.50%
Forest	632	2,878	40	11	1	6,883.00	119.8	1.70%
Grant	2,767	17,949	113	50	1	5,283.20	95.5	1.80%
Green	1,330	11,438	23	5	0	3,607.90	13.6	0.40%
Green Lake	1,028	5,695	160	4	0	5,385.60	21	0.40%
Iowa	927	7,976	28	4	0	3,895.10	16.8	0.40%
Iron	288	1,905	51	5	2	4,928.10	85.6	1.70%
Jackson	1,116	8,134	13	2	0	5,405.90	9.7	0.20%
Jefferson	4,024	26,908	212	29	1	4,752.30	34.2	0.70%
Juneau	1,459	11,604	7	6	0	5,422.20	22.3	0.40%
Kenosha	7,189	53,526	734	106	2	4,273.30	63	1.50%
Kewaunee	1,388	5,533	39	13	0	6,723.50	63	0.90%
La Crosse	6,184	36,601	215	28	0	5,225.90	23.7	0.50%
Lafayette	836	4,845	10	2	0	4,951.70	11.8	0.20%
Langlade	1,327	5,208	57	20	4	6,709.80	101.1	1.50%
Lincoln	1,455	7,658	57	14	2	5,115.70	49.2	1.00%
Manitowoc	3,925	21,561	492	29	4	4,890.70	36.1	0.70%
Marathon	7,738	35,598	558	96	10	5,742.90	71.2	1.20%
Marinette	2,407	13,460	189	20	0	5,879.60	48.9	0.80%
Marquette	896	4,505	97	7	0	5,826.50	45.5	0.80%
Menominee	452	3,376	2	2	0	10,314.90	45.6	0.40%
Milwaukee	54,226	344,161	3,553	641	9	5,741.40	67.9	1.20%
Monroe	1,799	13,671	26	9	0	3,911.00	19.6	0.50%
Oconto	2,718	12,522	164	20	3	7,159.80	52.7	0.70%
Oneida	1,741	12,554	44	19	0	4,847.80	52.9	1.10%
Outagamie	11,880	59,504	472	96	0	6,463.50	52.2	0.80%
Ozaukee	3,646	27,886	450	29	3	4,126.30	32.8	0.80%
Pepin	318	2,070	3	1	0	4,327.10	13.6	0.30%
Pierce	1,362	11,203	292	9	2	3,271.30	21.6	0.70%
Polk	1,376	13,170	16	4	0	3,134.40	9.1	0.30%
Portage	3,867	19,401	136	30	2	5,468.10	42.4	0.80%
Price	543	3,999	25	3	0	3,932.50	21.7	0.60%
Racine	11,075	83,532	1,103	135	3	5,673.60	69.2	1.20%
Richland	676	7,308	17	10	0	3,816.60	56.5	1.50%
Rock	7,257	53,347	289	58	2	4,528.10	36.2	0.80%
Rusk	524	3,391	25	5	0	3,605.30	34.4	1.00%
Sauk	2,814	27,234	84	10	0	4,489.00	16	0.40%
Sawyer	598	5,920	5	5	0	3,609.10	30.2	0.80%
Shawano	3,199	12,911	64	41	1	7,753.30	99.4	1.30%
Sheboygan	7,115	33,270	256	41	2	6,213.20	35.8	0.60%
St. Croix	3,165	24,222	141	18	0	3,589.70	20.4	0.60%
Taylor	792	4,126	43	10	0	3,848.40	48.6	1.30%
Trempealeau	1,646	8,783	26	7	0	5,611.60	23.9	0.40%
Vernon	785	9,391	6	5	0	2,591.90	16.5	0.60%
Vilas	919	6,351	22	9	0	4,243.60	41.6	1.00%
Walworth	4,674	31,024	515	42	2	4,554.90	40.9	0.90%
Washburn	409	4,215	11	2	0	2,580.00	12.6	0.50%
Washington	6,709	37,343	756	54	4	4,988.60	40.2	0.80%
Waukesha	18,055	117,873	1,454	162	3	4,529.10	40.6	0.90%
Waupaca	3,226	14,887	328	64	21	6,236.10	123.7	2.00%
Waushara	1,561	8,624	31	6	0	6,424.40	24.7	0.40%
Winnebago	11,494	59,965	680	91	3	6,787.40	53.7	0.80%
Wood	2,960	21,115	171	16	2	3,998.60	21.6	0.50%