COVID Going Down, Vaccinations Up

New COVID-19 cases are falling and new vaccinations are rising in Milwaukee County.

The number of daily new cases continues to steadily decrease along with several other key indicators of disease. Meanwhile, for the first time in weeks, the vaccination rate in the county is rising.

A team of epidemiologists and faculty from the Medical College of Wisconsin and UW-Milwaukee has been producing weekly reports tracking COVID-19 locally. Their latest report on the county shows a recent uptick in the average number of new vaccinations. 

Like the rest of the state, the rate of vaccination began to drop off in Milwaukee County in approximately mid-April. Beginning approximately two weeks ago, the average number of daily vaccinations began to rise, shortly after eligibility was expanded to children aged 12 to 15.

New cases are also falling across the county, in both the city and the suburbs, and there have been zero deaths in the county due to COVID-19 for the past two weeks.

The transmission rate, which measures how many people on average are likely to become infected by a single case of COVID-19, remains below 1.0, which means the community is suppressing the disease.

The positivity rate, the percentage of tests that come back positive for COVID-19, has been dropping for the past several weeks. This past week it was 2.8%. The week before that it was 3.1%.

COVID-19 continues to disproportionately affect Black residents of the county, as they still make up a disproportionate number of hospitalizations and have the second highest rate of death among racial and ethnic groups in the county. American Indians and Alaskan Natives have the highest rate of death.

Black residents are also the least vaccinated as a group in the county. White residents have the highest rate of vaccination, Asian American residents have the second highest rate of vaccination and Hispanic residents have the third highest rate of vaccination.

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