Jeramey Jannene
WI Daily

41 of 72 Counties Have Critically High COVID-19 Spread

Number of new cases and hospitalizations is slowing, but deaths continue to be reported at record levels.

By - Dec 2nd, 2020 05:23 pm
COVID-19. Credit: U.S. Army.

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

There are some reasons for optimism when looking at Wisconsin’s COVID-19 statistics, but an abundance of reasons to be pessimistic that the situation on the ground is improving.

The number of new cases is falling, but so is the amount of people being newly tested. The latter isn’t necessarily a negative, but the percentage of tests that return a positive result remains near record levels.

The state’s lagging indicators also present a mixed message. The number of people actively hospitalized is falling as is the number of people newly hospitalized, both an unquestionably good thing for the state’s strained hospital system. But the daily death average continues to set record highs.

It will take two almost two weeks to understand if any surge results from the Thanksgiving holiday.

The Department of Health Services reported 3,777 new cases on Wednesday from 9,983 processed tests.

The seven-day case total stands at 25,648, below last Thursday’s record 45,946. September, when Wisconsin’s surge started, accounted for 46,671 cases in its entirety. The seven-day testing total stands at 71,715, below November 18th’s record rolling total of 133,019 tests. The testing total is filtered to only include individuals who were tested for the first time or have been tested previously but are receiving their first positive diagnosis.

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 35.76%, below the record of 36.33% set on November 13th. The 14-day average is 33.48%. 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 197 people were newly hospitalized in the past 24 hours in its daily data release. A total of 17,569 people have required hospitalization since the outbreak began, 1,112 in the past week.

The Wisconsin Hospital Association reported that 1,780 people were actively hospitalized with a confirmed case of the disease, a decrease of 47 from the day before and 112 from a week ago. Thirty days ago the total was 1,648.

DHS reported 82 new deaths. A total of 3,502 Wisconsin residents have died as a result of the virus, including 756 in Milwaukee County.

The 30-day average daily death total now stands at a record average of 48.4 Thirty days ago the rolling average was 22.6.

Since September, Milwaukee County has gone from having the worst per-capita outbreak to the 21st worst in the state, even as its case and hospitalization load has surged to record levels. The county fell as low as 26th in early November.

Menominee County has recorded 13,007.8 cases per 100,000 residents (up from 12,848). Dodge County has recorded 9,480.4 cases per 100,000 residents (up from 9,425.5). Shawano, Brown, Oconto, Kewaunee, Jackson, Fond du Lac, Trempealeau, Forest, Calumet, Sheboygan, Langlade, Winnebago, Barron, Eau Claire, Outagamie, Chippewa, Crawford and Florence counties are the remaining counties leading Milwaukee.

According to DHS data, 7,388.8 out of every 100,000 Milwaukee County residents have tested positive for COVID-19 since the outbreak began (up from 7,310.2).

The statewide average of cases per 100,000 residents rose to 6,834.2 (up from 6,768.9). Wisconsin has recorded a per-capita rate of 1,094.1 cases per 100,000 residents in the past two weeks according to the DHS activity level report released Wednesday. That’s down from the record 1,519.4 reported November 18th.

Charts and Maps

Data from DHS website

Data from DHS website

Confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths by gender

Data from DHS website

Confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths by race

Data from DHS website

Confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths by ethnicity

Data from DHS website

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 1,071 6,133 73 7 1 5,225.7 34.2 0.7%
Ashland 697 5,330 28 9 0 4,393.9 56.7 1.3%
Barron 3,688 15,466 70 41 0 8,038.4 89.4 1.1%
Bayfield 698 5,265 18 14 0 4,590.9 92.1 2.0%
Brown 22,857 106,541 867 139 10 8,780.0 53.4 0.6%
Buffalo 828 3,987 15 4 0 6,129.2 29.6 0.5%
Burnett 790 4,824 82 13 0 5,114.3 84.2 1.6%
Calumet 4,086 16,254 226 26 1 7,937.7 50.5 0.6%
Chippewa 4,921 23,146 58 53 2 7,662.7 82.5 1.1%
Clark 2,215 8,507 192 42 3 6,375.8 120.9 1.9%
Columbia 3,531 22,714 202 12 1 6,180.9 21.0 0.3%
Crawford 1,318 6,211 28 8 0 7,961.3 48.3 0.6%
Dane 27,830 276,346 788 102 3 5,265.9 19.3 0.4%
Dodge 8,457 33,452 423 74 4 9,480.4 83.0 0.9%
Door 1,612 11,274 121 11 0 5,746.7 39.2 0.7%
Douglas 2,138 13,804 129 6 0 4,873.0 13.7 0.3%
Dunn 2,863 14,599 123 13 0 6,393.9 29.0 0.5%
Eau Claire 7,909 38,383 143 59 8 7,686.6 57.3 0.7%
Florence 333 1,334 19 12 0 7,532.2 271.4 3.6%
Fond du Lac 8,569 35,343 469 50 6 8,289.4 48.4 0.6%
Forest 733 3,346 45 18 2 7,983.0 196.0 2.5%
Grant 3,528 19,389 281 64 2 6,736.2 122.2 1.8%
Green 1,739 12,578 29 5 1 4,717.3 13.6 0.3%
Green Lake 1,192 6,151 255 6 2 6,244.8 31.4 0.5%
Iowa 1,315 8,908 46 5 1 5,525.4 21.0 0.4%
Iron 363 2,082 65 10 4 6,211.5 171.1 2.8%
Jackson 1,755 8,860 20 5 0 8,501.3 24.2 0.3%
Jefferson 5,426 29,292 394 39 1 6,408.0 46.1 0.7%
Juneau 1,937 12,507 10 7 0 7,198.6 26.0 0.4%
Kenosha 9,710 58,927 1,089 153 5 5,771.8 90.9 1.6%
Kewaunee 1,713 5,904 58 17 0 8,297.8 82.3 1.0%
La Crosse 8,209 40,943 302 37 0 6,937.2 31.3 0.5%
Lafayette 1,095 5,238 44 4 0 6,485.8 23.7 0.4%
Langlade 1,558 5,659 91 29 7 7,877.8 146.6 1.9%
Lincoln 1,986 8,406 98 30 13 6,982.6 105.5 1.5%
Manitowoc 4,980 23,382 689 37 4 6,205.3 46.1 0.7%
Marathon 9,926 40,040 815 126 17 7,366.7 93.5 1.3%
Marinette 3,012 14,267 253 29 0 7,357.5 70.8 1.0%
Marquette 1,032 4,872 132 15 0 6,710.9 97.5 1.5%
Menominee 570 3,571 2 8 0 13,007.8 182.6 1.4%
Milwaukee 69,786 376,779 5,014 756 13 7,388.8 80.0 1.1%
Monroe 2,683 15,037 30 14 0 5,832.9 30.4 0.5%
Oconto 3,177 13,530 212 28 3 8,368.9 73.8 0.9%
Oneida 2,346 13,179 60 34 1 6,532.5 94.7 1.4%
Outagamie 13,854 64,862 889 133 0 7,537.5 72.4 1.0%
Ozaukee 4,891 30,950 618 36 4 5,535.3 40.7 0.7%
Pepin 497 2,399 5 2 0 6,762.8 27.2 0.4%
Pierce 2,204 12,970 400 19 4 5,293.6 45.6 0.9%
Polk 2,236 14,887 19 15 0 5,093.4 34.2 0.7%
Portage 4,770 21,351 219 37 2 6,745.0 52.3 0.8%
Price 751 4,393 40 4 0 5,438.9 29.0 0.5%
Racine 14,288 88,487 1,409 177 6 7,319.6 90.7 1.2%
Richland 891 7,739 20 13 0 5,030.5 73.4 1.5%
Rock 9,553 58,533 446 90 3 5,960.8 56.2 0.9%
Rusk 904 3,880 26 7 0 6,219.9 48.2 0.8%
Sauk 3,637 29,762 120 19 0 5,801.9 30.3 0.5%
Sawyer 921 6,550 11 7 0 5,558.6 42.2 0.8%
Shawano 3,723 13,818 180 50 4 9,023.3 121.2 1.3%
Sheboygan 9,254 36,400 319 62 2 8,081.0 54.1 0.7%
St. Croix 4,417 27,491 268 21 0 5,009.7 23.8 0.5%
Taylor 1,222 4,614 126 10 4 5,937.8 48.6 0.8%
Trempealeau 2,451 9,732 41 22 0 8,356.1 75.0 0.9%
Vernon 1,171 10,541 7 12 0 3,866.3 39.6 1.0%
Vilas 1,287 6,890 36 13 0 5,942.9 60.0 1.0%
Walworth 6,127 33,622 1,052 53 2 5,970.9 51.6 0.9%
Washburn 726 4,875 50 5 0 4,579.6 31.5 0.7%
Washington 9,059 41,129 1,097 72 5 6,736.0 53.5 0.8%
Waukesha 26,945 131,548 2,174 210 11 6,759.2 52.7 0.8%
Waupaca 3,715 16,033 511 86 30 7,181.4 166.2 2.3%
Waushara 1,758 9,141 79 10 0 7,235.2 41.2 0.6%
Winnebago 13,285 64,460 1,319 117 4 7,845.0 69.1 0.9%
Wood 4,371 23,799 251 29 5 5,904.7 39.2 0.7%

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