Milwaukee County Has Fallen to 9th Worst All-Time COVID Outbreak
Wisconsin's most populous county long had the worst per-capita outbreak.
COVID-19. Credit: U.S. Army.
COVID-19 testing totals are increasing towards record levels in Wisconsin. But case and hospitalization totals are already there.
The Department of Health Services reported 2,988 positive cases Friday afternoon, just 12 shy of the state’s second-ever 3,000 case day. The first came Thursday.
A record 33,990 cases have been reported in the past 14 days, with 16,912 in the past seven days. The seven-day case high before September, and now October, brought a surge of cases with it was 6,512 for the week of July 26th.
The record level of new cases comes as a lagging indicator, the number of people hospitalized, continues to set record highs. That has prompted state officials to open a never-used alternative care facility constructed in the Wisconsin State Fair Park.
The increase in testing hasn’t resulted in the percentage of people testing positive falling. The seven and 14-day positive case rates now stand at 18.79% and 20.11%, the latter of which is an all-time high. The figure measures the percentage of tests that indicate a new case of COVID-19. The 14-day figure hit a low of 2.69% on June 19th.
Officials have looked for the positive case rate to trend downward to indicate a slowing spread of disease and sufficient testing. Multiple public health benchmarks call for the positive case figure to be sustained under five percent.
The Wisconsin Hospital Association reported 907 active hospitalizations on Thursday afternoon, the highest total since the pandemic began. The total is up 34 from Wednesday and 238 from a week ago. The number of people in an intensive care unit with the disease, 228, is also at a record high. An update on active hospitalizations was not available from DHS or WHA by the time of publication on Friday.
DHS reports that 138 people were newly hospitalized in the past 24 hours, bringing the outbreak total to 8,199. The one-day total is the second-highest on record.
A Milwaukee County official said the number of people hospitalized in the county with the disease has doubled in the past three weeks, but area hospitals still have capacity for the time being. But that’s not true for other state hospitals, particularly in the Fox Valley and other northeast Wisconsin counties. Patients are expected to be transported from those areas to the alternative care facility in West Allis.
The ultimate lagging indicator of the disease’s spread, death, is increasing in absolute numbers.
DHS reported 16 new deaths, bringing the statewide total to 1,440. There have been 548 deaths recorded in Milwaukee County. An average of 8.57 deaths per day have been reported across the state over the past 30 days. A month ago the rolling average was 6.17.
As evidence of the outstate spread, in just the past month Milwaukee has gone from having a runaway lead on the worst all-time per-capita spread of the disease to the ninth-worst. And it’s done so while the spread of the disease accelerated in the county.
Brown County has recorded 4,373.7 cases per 100,000 residents (up from 4,291.9). Forest County has record 3,898.9 cases per 100,000 residents (up from 3,855.4). Kewaunee County has recorded 3,788 cases per 100,000 residents (up from 3,691.1). Oconto County has recorded 3,780.1 cases per 100,000 residents (up from 3,616.8). Shawano County has recorded 3,574.8 cases per 100,000 residents (up from 3,429.5).
Winnebago (3,475.8), Calumet (3,440.4) and Outagamie (3,381.4) counties are the remaining counties leading Milwaukee.
According to DHS data, 3,350.7 out of every 100,000 Milwaukee County residents have tested positive for COVID-19 (up from 3,311.5) since the outbreak began.
The statewide average of cases per 100,000 residents rose to 2,505 (up from 2,453.4). Wisconsin has recorded a per-capita rate of 566.8 per 100,000 in the past two weeks according to the DHS activity level report released Wednesday.
Charts and Maps
Data from DHS
Data from DHS
Confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths by gender
Data from DHS
Confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths by race
Data from DHS
Confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths by ethnicity
Data from DHS
Cases and deaths by county
| Number of confirmed cases | Number of negatives* | Number of probable cases | Number of deaths** | Cases per 100,000 people (counties) | Deaths per 100,000 people (counties) | Case fatality percentage**** | ||
| Adams | 10/9/2020 | 290 | 4,411 | 19 | 4 | 1,415.00 | 19.5 | 1.40% |
| Ashland | 10/9/2020 | 180 | 3,335 | 10 | 2 | 1,134.70 | 12.6 | 1.10% |
| Barron | 10/9/2020 | 575 | 9,300 | 26 | 6 | 1,253.30 | 13.1 | 1.00% |
| Bayfield | 10/9/2020 | 136 | 3,336 | 9 | 1 | 894.5 | 6.6 | 0.70% |
| Brown | 10/9/2020 | 11,386 | 73,134 | 224 | 74 | 4,373.70 | 28.4 | 0.60% |
| Buffalo | 10/9/2020 | 169 | 2,808 | 4 | 2 | 1,251.00 | 14.8 | 1.20% |
| Burnett | 10/9/2020 | 239 | 3,091 | 14 | 4 | 1,547.20 | 25.9 | 1.70% |
| Calumet | 10/9/2020 | 1,771 | 11,177 | 53 | 6 | 3,440.40 | 11.7 | 0.30% |
| Chippewa | 10/9/2020 | 763 | 16,066 | 27 | 0 | 1,188.10 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Clark | 10/9/2020 | 524 | 6,087 | 44 | 9 | 1,508.30 | 25.9 | 1.70% |
| Columbia | 10/9/2020 | 1,019 | 16,782 | 57 | 3 | 1,783.70 | 5.3 | 0.30% |
| Crawford | 10/9/2020 | 227 | 4,623 | 6 | 0 | 1,371.20 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Dane | 10/9/2020 | 11,035 | 207,665 | 479 | 43 | 2,088.00 | 8.1 | 0.40% |
| Dodge | 10/9/2020 | 2,428 | 24,791 | 55 | 19 | 2,721.80 | 21.3 | 0.80% |
| Door | 10/9/2020 | 491 | 7,560 | 26 | 4 | 1,750.40 | 14.3 | 0.80% |
| Douglas | 10/9/2020 | 604 | 8,790 | 5 | 0 | 1,376.70 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Dunn | 10/9/2020 | 745 | 8,682 | 28 | 1 | 1,663.80 | 2.2 | 0.10% |
| Eau Claire | 10/9/2020 | 2,308 | 24,857 | 22 | 8 | 2,243.10 | 7.8 | 0.30% |
| Florence | 10/9/2020 | 122 | 958 | 0 | 2 | 2,759.60 | 45.2 | 1.60% |
| Fond du Lac | 10/9/2020 | 2,747 | 25,411 | 77 | 15 | 2,657.40 | 14.5 | 0.50% |
| Forest | 10/9/2020 | 358 | 2,011 | 6 | 7 | 3,898.90 | 76.2 | 2.00% |
| Grant | 10/9/2020 | 1,323 | 14,037 | 53 | 19 | 2,526.10 | 36.3 | 1.40% |
| Green | 10/9/2020 | 656 | 9,044 | 23 | 3 | 1,779.50 | 8.1 | 0.50% |
| Green Lake | 10/9/2020 | 419 | 4,366 | 68 | 1 | 2,195.10 | 5.2 | 0.20% |
| Iowa | 10/9/2020 | 264 | 6,150 | 25 | 0 | 1,109.30 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Iron | 10/9/2020 | 149 | 1,591 | 8 | 1 | 2,549.60 | 17.1 | 0.70% |
| Jackson | 10/9/2020 | 202 | 6,766 | 5 | 1 | 978.5 | 4.8 | 0.50% |
| Jefferson | 10/9/2020 | 1,803 | 20,864 | 77 | 8 | 2,129.30 | 9.4 | 0.40% |
| Juneau | 10/9/2020 | 500 | 9,674 | 4 | 2 | 1,858.20 | 7.4 | 0.40% |
| Kenosha | 10/9/2020 | 3,916 | 40,327 | 446 | 68 | 2,327.80 | 40.4 | 1.70% |
| Kewaunee | 10/9/2020 | 782 | 4,504 | 17 | 2 | 3,788.00 | 9.7 | 0.30% |
| La Crosse | 10/9/2020 | 3,486 | 28,692 | 149 | 8 | 2,945.90 | 6.8 | 0.20% |
| Lafayette | 10/9/2020 | 387 | 3,879 | 8 | 0 | 2,292.20 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Langlade | 10/9/2020 | 401 | 3,893 | 2 | 2 | 2,027.60 | 10.1 | 0.50% |
| Lincoln | 10/9/2020 | 386 | 5,660 | 15 | 3 | 1,357.10 | 10.5 | 0.80% |
| Manitowoc | 10/9/2020 | 1,618 | 15,862 | 166 | 5 | 2,016.10 | 6.2 | 0.30% |
| Marathon | 10/9/2020 | 2,332 | 22,319 | 138 | 27 | 1,730.70 | 20 | 1.20% |
| Marinette | 10/9/2020 | 1,203 | 10,786 | 60 | 9 | 2,938.60 | 22 | 0.70% |
| Marquette | 10/9/2020 | 383 | 3,659 | 13 | 1 | 2,490.60 | 6.5 | 0.30% |
| Menominee | 10/9/2020 | 144 | 2,873 | 0 | 0 | 3,286.20 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Milwaukee | 10/9/2020 | 31,647 | 268,821 | 1,978 | 548 | 3,350.70 | 58 | 1.70% |
| Monroe | 10/9/2020 | 733 | 11,131 | 17 | 3 | 1,593.50 | 6.5 | 0.40% |
| Oconto | 10/9/2020 | 1,435 | 9,895 | 70 | 4 | 3,780.10 | 10.5 | 0.30% |
| Oneida | 10/9/2020 | 694 | 9,517 | 8 | 4 | 1,932.40 | 11.1 | 0.60% |
| Outagamie | 10/9/2020 | 6,215 | 42,926 | 293 | 36 | 3,381.40 | 19.6 | 0.60% |
| Ozaukee | 10/9/2020 | 1,580 | 19,485 | 111 | 21 | 1,788.10 | 23.8 | 1.30% |
| Pepin | 10/9/2020 | 75 | 1,604 | 3 | 0 | 1,020.50 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Pierce | 10/9/2020 | 511 | 8,581 | 252 | 7 | 1,227.30 | 16.8 | 1.40% |
| Polk | 10/9/2020 | 311 | 9,679 | 12 | 2 | 708.4 | 4.6 | 0.60% |
| Portage | 10/9/2020 | 1,797 | 14,208 | 51 | 13 | 2,541.00 | 18.4 | 0.70% |
| Price | 10/9/2020 | 219 | 2,995 | 3 | 0 | 1,586.00 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Racine | 10/9/2020 | 5,486 | 71,139 | 550 | 99 | 2,810.40 | 50.7 | 1.80% |
| Richland | 10/9/2020 | 276 | 6,009 | 13 | 4 | 1,558.30 | 22.6 | 1.40% |
| Rock | 10/9/2020 | 3,109 | 38,736 | 202 | 34 | 1,939.90 | 21.2 | 1.10% |
| Rusk | 10/9/2020 | 86 | 2,402 | 8 | 1 | 591.7 | 6.9 | 1.20% |
| Sauk | 10/9/2020 | 1,151 | 20,580 | 61 | 5 | 1,836.10 | 8 | 0.40% |
| Sawyer | 10/9/2020 | 273 | 4,855 | 0 | 1 | 1,647.70 | 6 | 0.40% |
| Shawano | 10/9/2020 | 1,475 | 10,397 | 9 | 7 | 3,574.90 | 17 | 0.50% |
| Sheboygan | 10/9/2020 | 2,465 | 25,390 | 86 | 20 | 2,152.60 | 17.5 | 0.80% |
| St. Croix | 10/9/2020 | 1,155 | 17,915 | 73 | 9 | 1,310.00 | 10.2 | 0.80% |
| Taylor | 10/9/2020 | 273 | 3,177 | 4 | 4 | 1,326.50 | 19.4 | 1.50% |
| Trempealeau | 10/9/2020 | 774 | 6,921 | 20 | 2 | 2,638.80 | 6.8 | 0.30% |
| Vernon | 10/9/2020 | 332 | 7,010 | 5 | 1 | 1,096.20 | 3.3 | 0.30% |
| Vilas | 10/9/2020 | 328 | 4,954 | 13 | 1 | 1,514.60 | 4.6 | 0.30% |
| Walworth | 10/9/2020 | 2,850 | 25,159 | 208 | 36 | 2,777.40 | 35.1 | 1.30% |
| Washburn | 10/9/2020 | 144 | 3,179 | 7 | 2 | 908.3 | 12.6 | 1.40% |
| Washington | 10/9/2020 | 3,155 | 26,583 | 98 | 37 | 2,346.00 | 27.5 | 1.20% |
| Waukesha | 10/9/2020 | 8,775 | 87,512 | 790 | 97 | 2,201.20 | 24.3 | 1.10% |
| Waupaca | 10/9/2020 | 1,518 | 11,072 | 138 | 22 | 2,934.40 | 42.5 | 1.40% |
| Waushara | 10/9/2020 | 561 | 7,324 | 7 | 3 | 2,308.80 | 12.3 | 0.50% |
| Winnebago | 10/9/2020 | 5,886 | 43,389 | 197 | 40 | 3,475.80 | 23.6 | 0.70% |
| Wood | 10/9/2020 | 1,058 | 16,296 | 58 | 7 | 1,429.20 | 9.5 | 0.70% |
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