City Won’t Enhance Current COVID-19 Restrictions

2019 Novel Coronavirus. Image by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The City of Milwaukee Health Department will not be moving back its COVID-19 health order after all.

Last week, Health Commissioner Kirsten Johnson announced that her department was anticipating moving the health order, currently in phase six back to phase five, to combat rising cases of COVID-19.

This move would have reduced capacity limits at businesses and organizations without approved safety plans, though businesses with approved safety plans would not have been “substantially affected,” the department said at the time. The city’s mask mandate is still in effect.

The positivity rate, which measures the percentage of tests that come back positive for COVID-19 is at approximately 5% and the disease burden is between 80 and 90 cases per 100,000 people. This data puts the city somewhere between phase five and phase six.

“Because of this, and because we are hopeful more people will be vaccinated, we are keeping the phase six order in place for the next four weeks,” she said.

Milwaukee COVID-19 Health Performance Review. Image from MHD.

Milwaukee Health Department COVID-19 Gating Criteria. Image from MHD