624 New COVID-19 Cases

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services reported 624 new COVID-19 cases Tuesday from 3,218 processed tests.

The seven-day case total stands at 5,282, below November 18th’s record report of 45,946 and its lowest point since September 4th. The seven-day testing total stands at 34,496, 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.

That filtering is now causing an issue in the data. Because at least half of Wisconsin residents have been tested at least once, the state is no longer reporting out the positive case rate figure (we calculate it ourselves using DHS’ reported figures). It is now reporting the percent positive of all tests processed that day. Labs across the state have processed a combined total of more than 10,000 tests per day for months now.

That new figure will be lower because of people tested regularly because of employment requirements or other circumstances.

We will, for the time being at least, continue to calculate the figure using the same method we previously did.

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 15.31%, below the record high of 38.12% set December 4th. The 14-day average is 17.22%. 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.

The Wisconsin Hospital Association reported that 411 people were actively hospitalized with a confirmed case of the disease, a decrease of one from a day prior and 114 from a week ago. Thirty days ago the total was 853.

The state reported 82 people were newly hospitalized in the past 24 hours in its daily data release. A total of 25,422 people have required hospitalization since the outbreak began, 401 in the past week.

DHS reported 38 new deaths. A total of 6,204 Wisconsin residents have died as a result of the virus, including 1,188 in Milwaukee County.

The 30-day average daily death total now stands at 25.1, below the December 23rd reported record of 53.43. Thirty days ago the rolling average was 37.87.

Since September, Milwaukee County has gone from having the worst per-capita outbreak to the 19th 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 18,073.9 cases per 100,000 residents (no change). Dodge County has recorded 12,692.1 cases per 100,000 residents (up from 12,682). Jackson, Shawano, Trempealeau, Brown, Fond du Lac, Oconto, Sheboygan, Kewaunee, Barron, Chippewa, Calumet, Outagamie and Juneau are the remaining counties leading Milwaukee.

According to DHS data, 10,286 out of every 100,000 Milwaukee County residents have tested positive for COVID-19 since the outbreak began (up from 10,276.8).

The statewide average of cases per 100,000 residents rose to 9,623.4 (up from 9,612.6). Wisconsin has recorded a per-capita rate of 265.1 cases per 100,000 residents in the past two weeks according to the DHS activity level report released Wednesday. A record 1,519.4 was 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	1,554	7,541	159	11	4	7,582.3	53.7	0.7%
Ashland	1,167	6,641	65	16	0	7,356.7	100.9	1.4%
Barron	5,256	18,409	142	74	0	11,456.0	161.3	1.4%
Bayfield	1,061	6,508	68	18	0	6,978.4	118.4	1.7%
Brown	29,961	124,387	2,262	203	24	11,508.9	78.0	0.7%
Buffalo	1,308	5,104	29	7	0	9,682.4	51.8	0.5%
Burnett	1,158	5,833	133	23	0	7,496.6	148.9	2.0%
Calumet	5,404	19,942	518	41	2	10,498.1	79.6	0.8%
Chippewa	6,976	27,670	158	90	2	10,862.7	140.1	1.3%
Clark	3,142	10,104	385	57	4	9,044.1	164.1	1.8%
Columbia	4,960	26,095	375	50	8	8,682.3	87.5	1.0%
Crawford	1,659	7,211	48	17	0	10,021.1	102.7	1.0%
Dane	39,346	317,359	1,559	264	22	7,444.9	50.0	0.7%
Dodge	11,322	39,458	753	154	21	12,692.1	172.6	1.4%
Door	2,395	13,503	191	19	5	8,538.0	67.7	0.8%
Douglas	3,641	17,858	542	23	14	8,298.8	52.4	0.6%
Dunn	4,200	17,804	324	26	0	9,379.8	58.1	0.6%
Eau Claire	10,871	47,026	301	104	10	10,565.3	101.1	1.0%
Florence	431	1,558	34	12	0	9,748.9	271.4	2.8%
Fond du Lac	11,822	42,564	1,031	89	8	11,436.3	86.1	0.8%
Forest	919	4,076	69	23	3	10,008.7	250.5	2.5%
Grant	4,603	22,293	677	79	5	8,788.7	150.8	1.7%
Green	2,982	15,675	105	16	6	8,089.2	43.4	0.5%
Green Lake	1,518	7,397	415	18	3	7,952.6	94.3	1.2%
Iowa	1,834	10,563	87	9	1	7,706.2	37.8	0.5%
Iron	519	2,443	116	19	19	8,880.9	325.1	3.7%
Jackson	2,573	9,129	40	23	0	12,463.7	111.4	0.9%
Jefferson	7,776	34,284	941	76	8	9,183.3	89.8	1.0%
Juneau	2,960	14,235	82	19	1	11,000.4	70.6	0.6%
Kenosha	14,633	69,783	2,048	289	16	8,698.2	171.8	2.0%
Kewaunee	2,404	6,997	162	27	1	11,645.0	130.8	1.1%
La Crosse	12,059	51,029	644	75	0	10,190.7	63.4	0.6%
Lafayette	1,418	6,170	145	7	1	8,399.0	41.5	0.5%
Langlade	1,920	6,712	154	31	12	9,708.2	156.7	1.6%
Lincoln	2,870	10,132	188	56	17	10,090.7	196.9	2.0%
Manitowoc	7,162	28,751	1,107	61	17	8,924.2	76.0	0.9%
Marathon	13,512	48,116	1,323	171	32	10,028.1	126.9	1.3%
Marinette	3,959	17,284	378	61	2	9,670.7	149.0	1.5%
Marquette	1,296	5,866	169	21	5	8,427.6	136.6	1.6%
Menominee	792	3,753	2	11	0	18,073.9	251.0	1.4%
Milwaukee	97,149	446,309	8,686	1,214	36	10,286.0	128.5	1.2%
Monroe	4,237	17,932	86	30	1	9,211.3	65.2	0.7%
Oconto	4,232	16,077	442	47	7	11,148.0	123.8	1.1%
Oneida	3,310	14,282	133	64	4	9,216.7	178.2	1.9%
Outagamie	18,949	80,748	2,252	187	10	10,309.6	101.7	1.0%
Ozaukee	7,543	38,851	886	73	6	8,536.7	82.6	1.0%
Pepin	798	2,946	20	7	0	10,858.6	95.3	0.9%
Pierce	3,416	15,832	875	33	6	8,204.6	79.3	1.0%
Polk	3,789	18,181	64	44	0	8,631.0	100.2	1.2%
Portage	6,372	25,654	502	63	3	9,010.3	89.1	1.0%
Price	1,133	5,267	95	7	0	8,205.4	50.7	0.6%
Racine	20,147	96,397	2,550	314	29	10,321.1	160.9	1.6%
Richland	1,265	7,971	34	13	0	7,142.1	73.4	1.0%
Rock	14,213	70,929	1,540	151	14	8,868.4	94.2	1.1%
Rusk	1,241	4,725	40	16	1	8,538.6	110.1	1.3%
Sauk	5,185	33,953	237	39	6	8,271.4	62.2	0.8%
Sawyer	1,468	7,916	34	20	0	8,859.9	120.7	1.4%
Shawano	4,554	16,555	493	70	11	11,037.3	169.7	1.5%
Sheboygan	12,698	44,522	710	125	8	11,088.5	109.2	1.0%
St. Croix	6,271	33,604	1,589	42	4	7,112.5	47.6	0.7%
Taylor	1,784	5,583	211	20	9	8,668.6	97.2	1.1%
Trempealeau	3,367	11,577	90	36	2	11,478.9	122.7	1.1%
Vernon	1,800	12,405	62	36	3	5,943.1	118.9	2.0%
Vilas	2,068	8,283	119	36	2	9,549.3	166.2	1.7%
Walworth	8,752	39,534	2,356	124	19	8,529.0	120.8	1.4%
Washburn	1,272	6,176	71	18	2	8,023.7	113.5	1.4%
Washington	13,603	51,009	1,722	129	8	10,114.8	95.9	0.9%
Waukesha	40,091	164,279	4,027	467	43	10,056.9	117.1	1.2%
Waupaca	4,723	19,296	862	110	42	9,129.9	212.6	2.3%
Waushara	2,086	10,452	305	28	3	8,585.1	115.2	1.3%
Winnebago	16,850	76,749	2,627	179	20	9,950.2	105.7	1.1%
Wood	6,623	29,541	437	72	12	8,946.9	97.3	1.1%