New COVID-19 Cases May Be Plateauing
Vaccination levels have also plateaued in Milwaukee County.
Milwaukee County daily number of COVID-19 cases
The latest data on COVID-19 in Milwaukee County indicates the number of new cases are likely plateauing after rising in recent weeks.
The most recent weekly report produced by epidemiologists and faculty from the Medical College of Wisconsin and UW-Milwaukee and public health officials shows there were 1,717 new cases of COVID-19 among county residents this past week, compared to 1,968 the week prior.
Darren Rausch, director of the Greenfield Health Department, works on the weekly data report and he said in an email Friday to public health officials in the area that “The data supports evidence of a recent plateau, but we won’t know for sure until we assess the data in the coming weeks.”
The number of people hospitalized due to COVID-19 this past week, 120, was higher than the week before, 115. Rausch noted that “hospitalization data often lags due to reporting challenges.”
Hospitalization is also a lagging indicator of disease burden in general because of how long it takes for someone that contracts COVID-19 to become seriously ill.
Another lagging indicator, deaths, remained at zero this past week.
The most recent COVID-19 reproduction number for the county, as of May 11-17, show community suppression of the disease for the first time in weeks. The reproductive number is a measure of how many people, on average, will become infected by a single identified case of the disease. Numbers below 1.0 indicate suppression. The latest number for the county was 0.985.
The percentage of vaccine eligible Milwaukee County residents (five years old and up) that are completely vaccinated has not moved an inch in the latest county wide vaccination report. That number, as of May 23, is still at 61%. Neither has the number of booster eligible residents (12 years old and up) who received one, still at 58.6%.
Read the weekly report here. Read the children’s report here. Read the vaccination report here.
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