County Sees “Plateau” In New COVID-19 Cases

COVID-19 cases began rising in Milwaukee County in April, peaked in May, and now are holding relatively steady at a high level relative to before the rise.

Darren Rausch, director of the Greenfield Health Department, told public health colleagues in the Milwaukee area, “Overall, recent data supports evidence of a plateau since mid-May and fairly consistently high daily cases since.”

He said this in an email releasing the latest weekly report produced by epidemiologists and faculty from the Medical College of Wisconsin and UW-Milwaukee and public health officials tracking COVID-19 in Milwaukee County.

The report shows there were 1,682 new cases of COVID-19 from June 1-7. That’s up from 1,390 the week prior.

The number of reported hospitalizations due to COVID-19 also increased this past week, from 124 to 137. Data on hospitalizations does suffer from reporting difficulties, and it is a lagging indicator of disease because of how long it takes for someone who contracts COVID-19 to become seriously ill.

The number of children hospitalized due to COVID-19 has stayed the same, at 14, for two weeks in a row.

There were zero deaths due to COVID-19, down from 2 deaths the week prior.

The positivity rate, which measures the percentage of tests that come back positive for COVID-19 also went up very slightly to 14.7% this past week compared to 14.5% the week prior.

The most recent weekly COVID-19 reproduction number for the county, May 25-31 showed a slight increase above the week prior. This number is a measure of how many people, on average, will contract COVID-19 from a single confirmed case. Numbers below 1.0 indicate community suppression. The county’s latest reproduction number was 0.910.

The rate of vaccination has not changed in recent months, as the number of new people getting vaccinated has slowed to a drip. This past week, the percentage of vaccine eligible residents (five years and older) that were completely vaccinated was 65.8%, up from 65.7% the week prior, according to a countywide vaccine report. The percentage of booster eligible residents (12 years and older) was 58.8%, up from 58.7%

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