1 in 10 Milwaukee County Residents Have Tested Positive For COVID-19

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services reported 1,567 new COVID-19 cases Friday from 6,940 processed tests. The latest county-by-county totals put the percentage of Milwaukee County residents who have tested positive for the disease at some point in the last year over 10% for the first time.

The seven-day case total stands at 9,744, below November 18th’s record report of 45,946 and its lowest point since September 17th. The seven-day testing total stands at 44,917, 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 21.69%, below the record high of 38.12% set December 4th. The 14-day average is 23.41%. 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.

The Wisconsin Hospital Association reported that 678 people were actively hospitalized with a confirmed case of the disease, a decrease of 40 from a day prior and 107 from a week ago. Thirty days ago the total was 1,074.

The state reported 91 people were newly hospitalized in the past 24 hours in its daily data release. A total of 24,154 people have required hospitalization since the outbreak began, 618 in the past week.

DHS reported 49 new deaths. A total of 5,860 Wisconsin residents have died as a result of the virus, including 1,135 in Milwaukee County.

The 30-day average daily death total now stands at 33.33, below the December 23rd reported record of 53.43. Thirty days ago the rolling average was 50.17.

Since September, Milwaukee County has gone from having the worst per-capita outbreak to the 18th 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 17,868.6 cases per 100,000 residents (up from 17,845.7). Dodge County has recorded 12,489.2 cases per 100,000 residents (up from 12,466.8). Jackson, Shawano, Trempealeau, Brown, Fond du Lac, Oconto, Sheboygan, Kewaunee, Barron, Chippewa, Calumet and Juneau are the remaining counties leading Milwaukee.

According to DHS data, 10,005.1 out of every 100,000 Milwaukee County residents have tested positive for COVID-19 since the outbreak began (up from 9,978.1).

The statewide average of cases per 100,000 residents rose to 9,339.4 (up from 9,312.3). Wisconsin has recorded a per-capita rate of 402.7 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.

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	1,495	7,281	155	11	3	7,294.5	53.7	0.7%
Ashland	1,135	6,449	65	16	0	7,155.0	100.9	1.4%
Barron	5,108	17,900	125	69	0	11,133.4	150.4	1.4%
Bayfield	1,032	6,274	54	18	0	6,787.7	118.4	1.7%
Brown	29,191	121,211	2,065	195	20	11,213.1	74.9	0.7%
Buffalo	1,259	4,866	30	7	0	9,319.7	51.8	0.6%
Burnett	1,094	5,639	124	23	0	7,082.3	148.9	2.1%
Calumet	5,212	19,097	471	39	2	10,125.1	75.8	0.7%
Chippewa	6,787	26,781	149	79	2	10,568.4	123.0	1.2%
Clark	3,087	9,806	366	56	4	8,885.8	161.2	1.8%
Columbia	4,822	25,384	361	43	7	8,440.7	75.3	0.9%
Crawford	1,635	7,045	47	16	0	9,876.2	96.6	1.0%
Dane	37,707	311,398	1,500	245	21	7,134.8	46.4	0.6%
Dodge	11,141	38,521	707	144	18	12,489.2	161.4	1.3%
Door	2,344	13,147	190	18	5	8,356.2	64.2	0.8%
Douglas	3,522	17,218	561	18	14	8,027.5	41.0	0.5%
Dunn	4,022	17,157	318	26	0	8,982.3	58.1	0.6%
Eau Claire	10,498	45,438	300	97	10	10,202.8	94.3	0.9%
Florence	424	1,523	32	12	0	9,590.6	271.4	2.8%
Fond du Lac	11,521	41,102	944	84	9	11,145.1	81.3	0.7%
Forest	906	3,943	69	22	3	9,867.1	239.6	2.4%
Grant	4,478	21,625	629	79	5	8,550.0	150.8	1.8%
Green	2,706	15,068	99	13	6	7,340.5	35.3	0.5%
Green Lake	1,490	7,147	402	15	3	7,806.0	78.6	1.0%
Iowa	1,786	10,264	88	9	1	7,504.5	37.8	0.5%
Iron	472	2,357	112	19	17	8,076.7	325.1	4.0%
Jackson	2,543	9,244	39	22	0	12,318.3	106.6	0.9%
Jefferson	7,519	33,326	851	71	6	8,879.8	83.9	0.9%
Juneau	2,863	13,903	80	17	1	10,640.0	63.2	0.6%
Kenosha	14,165	67,852	1,907	270	12	8,420.0	160.5	1.9%
Kewaunee	2,341	6,803	159	26	1	11,339.9	125.9	1.1%
La Crosse	11,647	48,927	611	71	0	9,842.6	60.0	0.6%
Lafayette	1,372	5,971	144	7	1	8,126.5	41.5	0.5%
Langlade	1,885	6,502	151	31	12	9,531.3	156.7	1.6%
Lincoln	2,788	9,881	186	55	17	9,802.4	193.4	2.0%
Manitowoc	6,902	27,739	1,035	60	15	8,600.2	74.8	0.9%
Marathon	13,268	46,827	1,300	169	32	9,847.0	125.4	1.3%
Marinette	3,896	16,701	370	59	2	9,516.8	144.1	1.5%
Marquette	1,265	5,674	165	21	5	8,226.0	136.6	1.7%
Menominee	783	3,751	2	11	0	17,868.6	251.0	1.4%
Milwaukee	94,496	434,539	8,320	1,135	28	10,005.1	120.2	1.2%
Monroe	4,062	17,413	81	30	1	8,830.8	65.2	0.7%
Oconto	4,139	15,627	411	46	7	10,903.0	121.2	1.1%
Oneida	3,158	13,880	127	57	4	8,793.5	158.7	1.8%
Outagamie	18,309	77,232	2,096	179	7	9,961.4	97.4	1.0%
Ozaukee	7,310	37,585	854	72	6	8,273.0	81.5	1.0%
Pepin	775	2,850	19	7	0	10,545.7	95.3	0.9%
Pierce	3,308	15,357	813	33	5	7,945.2	79.3	1.0%
Polk	3,549	17,547	53	42	0	8,084.3	95.7	1.2%
Portage	6,122	24,851	471	59	3	8,656.8	83.4	1.0%
Price	1,100	5,118	88	7	0	7,966.4	50.7	0.6%
Racine	19,744	94,974	2,478	297	26	10,114.6	152.1	1.5%
Richland	1,220	8,065	35	13	0	6,888.0	73.4	1.1%
Rock	13,705	68,554	1,419	140	12	8,551.5	87.4	1.0%
Rusk	1,226	4,590	40	15	1	8,435.4	103.2	1.2%
Sauk	5,057	33,356	232	36	6	8,067.2	57.4	0.7%
Sawyer	1,406	7,665	31	17	0	8,485.7	102.6	1.2%
Shawano	4,498	16,090	473	69	11	10,901.6	167.2	1.5%
Sheboygan	12,424	43,052	671	114	7	10,849.2	99.6	0.9%
St. Croix	6,092	32,440	1,497	40	4	6,909.5	45.4	0.7%
Taylor	1,751	5,441	210	20	9	8,508.3	97.2	1.1%
Trempealeau	3,271	11,227	88	35	2	11,151.6	119.3	1.1%
Vernon	1,730	12,042	60	34	3	5,712.0	112.3	2.0%
Vilas	1,928	7,982	105	32	2	8,902.8	147.8	1.7%
Walworth	8,568	38,548	2,242	118	13	8,349.7	115.0	1.4%
Washburn	1,225	5,938	69	18	2	7,727.2	113.5	1.5%
Washington	13,231	49,413	1,668	121	8	9,838.2	90.0	0.9%
Waukesha	38,897	158,876	3,851	445	37	9,757.4	111.6	1.1%
Waupaca	4,602	18,621	845	107	40	8,896.0	206.8	2.3%
Waushara	2,038	10,212	262	25	2	8,387.5	102.9	1.2%
Winnebago	16,493	74,190	2,484	168	19	9,739.3	99.2	1.0%
Wood	6,370	28,500	413	66	11	8,605.1	89.2	1.0%