Jeramey Jannene
WI Daily

Wisconsin’s Active COVID-19 Cases Would Form 24th Largest City in State

Records set for new cases, positive case rate and rolling death total.

By - Oct 16th, 2020 02:58 pm
COVID-19. Credit: U.S. Army.

COVID-19. Credit: U.S. Army.

There are more people actively infected with COVID-19 in Wisconsin than there are residents of either Manitowoc, West Best, Sun Praire, Superior or Stevens Point.

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services reported a record 3,861 cases Friday. It’s the fourth straight day of over 3,000 new cases, a threshold the state hadn’t crossed prior.

The new cases, which come from 14,586 processed tests, pushed the active caseload to 34,345. If all of those Wisconsin residents were to relocate to a new city, they would form the 24th largest community in the state, closely trailing Oak Creek (34,451 residents). This comparison was first made by Rep. Daniel Riemer (D-Milwaukee) on Twitter.

In the past seven days alone, a record 21,368 people have tested positive. 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.

What started in September with a surge of cases in the state’s younger residents now is afflicting all age groups. “What we are seeing now in the state of Wisconsin and have been seeing in all age groups is very intense community spreads,” said DHS Secretary-designee Andrea Palm in a media briefing Thursday afternoon. Fifty-seven of the state’s 72 counties meet the state’s threshold for “very high” spread. She warned that things will get worse before they get better and that people looking to slow the spread can stay home whenever possible and wear a mask when in public.

The seven-day testing total fell to 93,275, up from 69,141 a month ago. A high of 99,920 tests was recorded for the week ending August 6th.

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 22.91% and 20.89%, both are record highs. 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.“Because of the course of this virus we can expect to see an increase in hospitalizations as long as we see an increase in daily new cases,” said Palm, talking about days and weeks in the future. But hospitalizations are already setting records now.

The Wisconsin Hospital Association reported 1,101 active hospitalizations on Friday, a record high. Friday’s total is up 58 from Thursday and up 207 from a week ago. Thirty days ago the figure stood at 347.

DHS reports that 135 people were newly hospitalized in the past 24 hours, bringing the outbreak total to 9,027.

“We need to do all we can right now to break that transmission, to stop the spread”, said Palm. “But it will take time before we see the fruits of that labor in reduced hospitalizations and reduced community spread.” Wearing masks and restricting gatherings is part of that. She said there is no doubt that masks slow the spread of the disease. “My mask protects you, your mask protects me,” said Palm. “The evidence is clear.”

The ultimate lagging indicator of the disease’s spread, death, is increasing in absolute numbers.

DHS reported 21 new deaths, bringing the statewide total to 1,574. There have been 554 deaths recorded in Milwaukee County. An average of 11.53 deaths per day have been reported across the state over the past 30 days, the highest average on record. A month ago the rolling average was 5.97.

As evidence of the outstate spread, in just the past month Milwaukee County has gone from having a runaway lead on the worst all-time per-capita spread of the disease to the 10th-worst. And it’s done so while the spread of the disease accelerated in the county.

Brown County has recorded 4,935.3 cases per 100,000 residents (up from 4,808.9). Menominee County is next with 4,701 cases per 100,000 residents (up from 4,427.2). Shawano, Oconto, Forest, Kewaunee, Calumet, Winnebago and Outagamie counties are the remaining counties leading Milwaukee.

According to DHS data, 3,642.2 out of every 100,000 Milwaukee County residents have tested positive for COVID-19 (up from 3,601.7) since the outbreak began.

The statewide average of cases per 100,000 residents rose to 2,874.7 (up from 2,807.9). Wisconsin has recorded a per-capita rate of 627.9 per 100,000 in the past two weeks according to the DHS activity level report released Wednesday.

NOTICE: DHS reports that the state’s electronics records system will be down over the weekend for an update. As a result, no new data is scheduled to be available until Monday.

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 10/16/2020 352 4,678 20 4 1,717.50 19.5 1.10%
Ashland 10/16/2020 214 3,655 10 3 1,349.10 18.9 1.40%
Barron 10/16/2020 730 10,363 27 6 1,591.10 13.1 0.80%
Bayfield 10/16/2020 168 3,649 10 1 1,105.00 6.6 0.60%
Brown 10/16/2020 12,848 80,659 250 84 4,935.30 32.3 0.70%
Buffalo 10/16/2020 197 2,923 5 2 1,458.30 14.8 1.00%
Burnett 10/16/2020 261 3,207 14 6 1,689.60 38.8 2.30%
Calumet 10/16/2020 2,174 11,923 62 10 4,223.30 19.4 0.50%
Chippewa 10/16/2020 1,017 16,871 29 2 1,583.60 3.1 0.20%
Clark 10/16/2020 623 6,363 53 11 1,793.30 31.7 1.80%
Columbia 10/16/2020 1,321 17,804 58 4 2,312.40 7 0.30%
Crawford 10/16/2020 284 4,800 7 0 1,715.50 0 0.00%
Dane 10/16/2020 12,296 214,057 530 46 2,326.60 8.7 0.40%
Dodge 10/16/2020 2,891 25,635 84 21 3,240.80 23.5 0.70%
Door 10/16/2020 584 8,004 37 4 2,081.90 14.3 0.70%
Douglas 10/16/2020 673 9,344 6 1 1,533.90 2.3 0.10%
Dunn 10/16/2020 827 9,635 38 1 1,846.90 2.2 0.10%
Eau Claire 10/16/2020 2,558 26,793 21 9 2,486.10 8.7 0.40%
Florence 10/16/2020 149 1,047 4 4 3,370.30 90.5 2.70%
Fond du Lac 10/16/2020 3,375 26,839 95 17 3,264.90 16.4 0.50%
Forest 10/16/2020 392 2,206 7 10 4,269.20 108.9 2.60%
Grant 10/16/2020 1,550 14,798 60 23 2,959.50 43.9 1.50%
Green 10/16/2020 776 9,629 20 3 2,105.00 8.1 0.40%
Green Lake 10/16/2020 563 4,747 82 2 2,949.50 10.5 0.40%
Iowa 10/16/2020 352 6,542 26 1 1,479.10 4.2 0.30%
Iron 10/16/2020 159 1,629 16 1 2,720.70 17.1 0.60%
Jackson 10/16/2020 256 6,941 5 1 1,240.10 4.8 0.40%
Jefferson 10/16/2020 2,131 22,310 78 9 2,516.70 10.6 0.40%
Juneau 10/16/2020 581 10,036 4 3 2,159.20 11.1 0.50%
Kenosha 10/16/2020 4,266 41,401 465 69 2,535.80 41 1.60%
Kewaunee 10/16/2020 877 4,750 22 4 4,248.20 19.4 0.50%
La Crosse 10/16/2020 3,718 29,103 155 12 3,142.00 10.1 0.30%
Lafayette 10/16/2020 445 4,127 8 1 2,635.80 5.9 0.20%
Langlade 10/16/2020 624 4,267 6 5 3,155.20 25.3 0.80%
Lincoln 10/16/2020 506 6,183 22 5 1,779.10 17.6 1.00%
Manitowoc 10/16/2020 2,004 16,496 247 7 2,497.10 8.7 0.30%
Marathon 10/16/2020 3,165 23,479 197 32 2,349.00 23.7 1.00%
Marinette 10/16/2020 1,379 11,270 86 9 3,368.50 22 0.70%
Marquette 10/16/2020 479 3,840 16 2 3,114.80 13 0.40%
Menominee 10/16/2020 206 2,985 0 0 4,701.00 0 0.00%
Milwaukee 10/16/2020 34,400 279,095 2,134 554 3,642.20 58.7 1.60%
Monroe 10/16/2020 878 11,633 18 3 1,908.80 6.5 0.30%
Oconto 10/16/2020 1,691 10,650 84 6 4,454.50 15.8 0.40%
Oneida 10/16/2020 877 10,421 18 6 2,442.00 16.7 0.70%
Outagamie 10/16/2020 7,286 45,096 344 48 3,964.10 26.1 0.70%
Ozaukee 10/16/2020 1,778 20,519 178 23 2,012.20 26 1.30%
Pepin 10/16/2020 86 1,673 3 0 1,170.20 0 0.00%
Pierce 10/16/2020 582 9,056 253 7 1,397.90 16.8 1.20%
Polk 10/16/2020 388 10,126 14 2 883.8 4.6 0.50%
Portage 10/16/2020 2,121 15,432 53 15 2,999.20 21.2 0.70%
Price 10/16/2020 272 3,271 7 0 1,969.90 0 0.00%
Racine 10/16/2020 6,036 71,984 630 101 3,092.20 51.7 1.70%
Richland 10/16/2020 364 6,404 13 6 2,055.10 33.9 1.60%
Rock 10/16/2020 3,828 39,588 214 38 2,388.50 23.7 1.00%
Rusk 10/16/2020 139 2,532 9 1 956.4 6.9 0.70%
Sauk 10/16/2020 1,383 21,721 62 6 2,206.20 9.6 0.40%
Sawyer 10/16/2020 319 5,073 1 1 1,925.30 6 0.30%
Shawano 10/16/2020 1,840 10,989 11 8 4,459.50 19.4 0.40%
Sheboygan 10/16/2020 2,949 26,935 99 20 2,575.20 17.5 0.70%
St. Croix 10/16/2020 1,367 19,124 86 9 1,550.40 10.2 0.70%
Taylor 10/16/2020 334 3,360 7 6 1,622.90 29.2 1.80%
Trempealeau 10/16/2020 842 6,931 19 2 2,870.60 6.8 0.20%
Vernon 10/16/2020 418 7,878 5 3 1,380.10 9.9 0.70%
Vilas 10/16/2020 397 4,998 20 3 1,833.20 13.9 0.80%
Walworth 10/16/2020 3,026 26,125 227 36 2,948.90 35.1 1.20%
Washburn 10/16/2020 173 3,400 8 2 1,091.30 12.6 1.20%
Washington 10/16/2020 3,648 27,729 202 40 2,712.60 29.7 1.10%
Waukesha 10/16/2020 9,935 91,837 873 103 2,492.20 25.8 1.00%
Waupaca 10/16/2020 1,849 11,672 152 29 3,574.30 56.1 1.60%
Waushara 10/16/2020 741 7,625 9 3 3,049.60 12.3 0.40%
Winnebago 10/16/2020 7,014 45,500 336 49 4,141.90 28.9 0.70%
Wood 10/16/2020 1,254 17,204 70 9 1,694.00 12.2 0.70%

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