New COVID-19 Cases Decreasing

Milwaukee County is starting to see a slight decrease in new COVID-19 cases.

The latest report from a team of epidemiologists and faculty from the Medical College of Wisconsin and UW-Milwaukee shows that disease trends for both adults and children, in general, are moving in a good direction countywide.

Darren Rausch, director of the Greenfield Health Department, works on the weekly report and he said the slight decrease in COVID-19 among children in the county is a “very, very notable” development after the past few weeks of rising cases among children.

The county continues to see very few deaths from COVID-19. There was one death in the county from COVID-19 during the past week. This low death rate is being driven by the success of the COVID-19 vaccine, public health officials have said. The most at risk population, those 65 years and older have a high rate of vaccination.

The transmission rate, which measures how many new people, on average, will catch COVID-19 from a single confirmed case, is below 1.0 countywide. The latest data on transmission shows it is trending down in the city and trending up in the suburbs.

The positivity rate, which measures the percentage of tests that come back positive for COVID-19, is declining. It was 3.5% this past week, and 4.4% the week before.

Given the recent rise in cases among teenagers, the total cumulative cases of COVID-19 among those 18 years old and young is set to surpass that of those 60 to 70 years old. The latter group has had more cases than children for the entire pandemic.

Cumulative cases among Black county residents are on track to surpass the cumulative number of cases among Hispanic residents, which is something that hasn’t happened since the beginning of the pandemic, Rausch said. Black residents still have the highest rate of hospitalization for COVID-19 in the county.

Hispanic residents still have the highest rate of disease, white residents have the most cumulative cases and American Indian and Alaskan Native residents have the highest rate of death.

Read the weekly report here. Read the children’s report here.