State Officials Predict Worsening Outbreak With No Behavior Changes

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services reported 5,096 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 from 18,692 processed tests on Friday afternoon.

“The President has said we’re rounding the corner. There is little data to support that,” said Governor Tony Evers Friday morning in imploring Wisconsin residents to stay home whenever possible and limit their social circle to their own household for the time being.

Besides a call for people to mind their personal health to limit the virus’ effects and its spread, Evers has a simple message for those that must go out.

“People have to wear a freaking mask, simple as that,” said the Governor.

The seven-day positive case rate, the percentage of tests that confirm a new case of the disease, stands at 28.86%, a record high. It set 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 rate figure to be sustained under five percent.

A record 29,614 Wisconsin residents have tested positive for the disease in the past week. Since the pandemic began 220,092 people have tested positive.

“In these two months, our seven-day average has increased by more than 500 percent,” said DHS Secretary-designee Andrea Palm of the surge in cases.

Lagging indicators of the disease’s spread continue to set new highs, while state health officials warn that hospitalization and death surges are connected to earlier record case reports.

Dr. Ryan Westergaard, chief medical officer of the DHS Bureau of Communicable Diseases, called it a “nightmare scenario” during a Tuesday afternoon press briefing.

Friday morning he expressed dismay with how things are going.

“Personally and frankly I am surprised and disappointed that we have failed as much as we have to slow the virus. I say that because it is important to understand that there is still time to turn this around,” said Westergaard.

He said left unchecked the virus would infect 70 to 80 percent of Wisconsin residents. “It’s probably fewer than 10% of Wisconsin residents that have been infected,” said Westergaard, estimating those with confirmed and unconfirmed cases.

“I think it’s so important we understand we can turn the corner,” he said. “If we don’t do that it would not be surprising for numbers to continue to get worse.”

In the meantime, the numbers continue to get worse.

The Wisconsin Hospital Association reported a record 1,546 people are actively hospitalized with a confirmed case of the disease. That’s up 93 in the past 24 hours and 303 since last week.

The state reported that 142 people were newly hospitalized in the past 24 hours. A total of 11,145 people have required hospitalization since the outbreak began, 1,107 in the past week.

A record eight patients are in the Alternate Care Facility in West Allis.

DHS reported 24 deaths Friday. A total of 1,972 Wisconsin residents have died as a result of the virus, including 585 in Milwaukee County. Officials confirmed Tuesday that the total includes only people where a medical examiner determined the disease was a contributing factor in the death.

An average of 21.5 deaths per day have been reported over the past 30 days, the second-highest total on record beyond yesterday’s 21.6. Thirty days ago the figure stood at 7.27.

Westergaard said the case fatality rate has fallen because of a broadening age distribution in those who contract the virus. “Anyone who is infected can become severely ill,” he said, noting that death wasn’t the only negative outcome. “I think the short lesson is deaths are on the rise because cases on the rise.”

Since September, Milwaukee County has gone from having the worst per-capita outbreak to the 15th worst in the state, even as its case and hospitalization load has surged to record levels.

Menominee County has recorded 7,576.4 cases per 100,000 residents (up from 7,188.5). Shawano County has recorded 6,226.4 cases per 100,000 residents (up from 6,073.7). Brown, Oconto, Kewaunee, Calumet, Forest, Winnebago, Langlade, Outagamie, Dodge, Florence, Waupaca and Fond du Lac counties are the remaining counties leading Milwaukee.

According to DHS data, 4,416.4 out of every 100,000 Milwaukee County residents have tested positive for COVID-19 since the outbreak began (up from 4,371.9).

The statewide average of cases per 100,000 residents rose to 3,807.1 (up from 3,719). Wisconsin has recorded a per-capita rate of 891.7 cases per 100,000 residents in the past two weeks according to the DHS activity level report released Wednesday.

Charts and Maps

Confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths by gender

Confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths by race

Confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths by ethnicity

Cases and deaths by county

	Number of confirmed cases	Number of negatives*	Number of probable cases	Number of deaths †	Number of probable deaths ‡	Cases per 100,000 people (counties)	Deaths per 100,000 people (counties)	Case fatality percentage ††
“la crosse”	1	0	0	0	0			0.00%
Adams	562	5,127	39	4	0	2,742.10	19.5	0.70%
Ashland	291	4,140	10	3	0	1,834.50	18.9	1.00%
Barron	1,223	12,338	32	7	0	2,665.60	15.3	0.60%
Bayfield	256	4,022	10	2	0	1,683.80	13.2	0.80%
Brown	15,983	93,519	358	101	3	6,139.50	38.8	0.60%
Buffalo	309	3,226	7	3	0	2,287.40	22.2	1.00%
Burnett	320	3,699	15	6	0	2,071.60	38.8	1.90%
Calumet	2,772	13,570	66	11	0	5,385.00	21.4	0.40%
Chippewa	1,865	18,966	36	21	2	2,904.10	32.7	1.10%
Clark	962	7,023	77	17	3	2,769.10	48.9	1.80%
Columbia	1,863	19,427	138	7	0	3,261.10	12.3	0.40%
Crawford	367	5,166	7	1	0	2,216.90	6	0.30%
Dane	15,521	239,629	573	49	1	2,936.80	9.3	0.30%
Dodge	4,453	28,635	166	28	1	4,991.90	31.4	0.60%
Door	896	9,336	66	8	0	3,194.20	28.5	0.90%
Douglas	820	10,270	5	2	0	1,869.00	4.6	0.20%
Dunn	1,130	11,430	40	1	0	2,523.60	2.2	0.10%
Eau Claire	3,738	30,174	38	16	1	3,632.90	15.6	0.40%
Florence	216	1,150	11	7	0	4,885.80	158.3	3.20%
Fond du Lac	4,817	29,609	153	20	0	4,659.80	19.3	0.40%
Forest	494	2,573	19	11	0	5,380.10	119.8	2.20%
Grant	1,974	16,823	81	34	0	3,769.00	64.9	1.70%
Green	999	10,488	20	5	0	2,710.00	13.6	0.50%
Green Lake	785	5,267	118	4	0	4,112.50	21	0.50%
Iowa	523	7,168	29	1	0	2,197.60	4.2	0.20%
Iron	208	1,801	45	4	0	3,559.20	68.4	1.90%
Jackson	564	7,497	8	1	0	2,732.00	4.8	0.20%
Jefferson	2,880	24,622	119	15	0	3,401.20	17.7	0.50%
Juneau	824	10,828	7	4	0	3,062.30	14.9	0.50%
Kenosha	5,321	48,793	552	83	2	3,162.90	49.3	1.60%
Kewaunee	1,122	5,129	26	7	0	5,435.00	33.9	0.60%
La Crosse	4,473	32,771	164	22	0	3,780.00	18.6	0.50%
Lafayette	576	4,456	9	1	0	3,411.70	5.9	0.20%
Langlade	1,045	4,811	29	11	1	5,283.90	55.6	1.10%
Lincoln	872	6,907	38	12	2	3,065.90	42.2	1.40%
Manitowoc	2,951	19,639	350	16	3	3,677.10	19.9	0.50%
Marathon	5,127	31,718	381	54	4	3,805.10	40.1	1.10%
Marinette	1,808	12,186	130	14	0	4,416.40	34.2	0.80%
Marquette	647	4,179	82	2	0	4,207.30	13	0.30%
Menominee	332	3,231	0	0	0	7,576.40	0	0.00%
Milwaukee	41,932	317,267	2,677	585	5	4,439.70	61.9	1.40%
Monroe	1,200	12,643	21	7	0	2,608.80	15.2	0.60%
Oconto	2,196	11,711	94	17	3	5,784.70	44.8	0.80%
Oneida	1,327	11,461	17	13	0	3,695.00	36.2	1.00%
Outagamie	9,592	55,224	388	78	0	5,218.70	42.4	0.80%
Ozaukee	2,420	25,162	266	25	2	2,738.80	28.3	1.00%
Pepin	162	1,887	3	0	0	2,204.40	0	0.00%
Pierce	765	9,977	235	7	0	1,837.40	16.8	0.90%
Polk	597	11,564	15	3	0	1,359.90	6.8	0.50%
Portage	2,904	17,754	81	21	1	4,106.40	29.7	0.70%
Price	382	3,693	19	3	0	2,766.50	21.7	0.80%
Racine	7,889	78,568	835	113	2	4,041.40	57.9	1.40%
Richland	488	6,927	16	9	0	2,755.20	50.8	1.80%
Rock	5,408	48,587	245	46	2	3,374.40	28.7	0.90%
Rusk	232	3,061	12	1	0	1,596.30	6.9	0.40%
Sauk	1,884	25,146	67	7	0	3,005.50	11.2	0.40%
Sawyer	400	5,472	3	3	0	2,414.10	18.1	0.80%
Shawano	2,569	12,066	19	26	1	6,226.40	63	1.00%
Sheboygan	5,010	30,260	128	29	1	4,375.00	25.3	0.60%
St. Croix	1,974	21,396	100	11	0	2,238.90	12.5	0.60%
Taylor	523	3,773	28	7	0	2,541.30	34	1.30%
Trempealeau	1,101	8,072	23	3	0	3,753.60	10.2	0.30%
Vernon	528	8,587	5	2	0	1,743.30	6.6	0.40%
Vilas	612	5,824	20	7	0	2,826.00	32.3	1.10%
Walworth	3,502	28,793	301	39	1	3,412.80	38	1.10%
Washburn	261	3,849	7	2	0	1,646.40	12.6	0.80%
Washington	4,721	33,989	389	43	2	3,510.40	32	0.90%
Waukesha	13,040	106,746	1,050	125	3	3,271.10	31.4	1.00%
Waupaca	2,519	13,742	260	44	7	4,869.40	85.1	1.70%
Waushara	1,065	8,170	8	5	0	4,383.10	20.6	0.50%
Winnebago	9,165	55,328	471	66	2	5,412.10	39	0.70%
Wood	1,834	19,019	113	10	2	2,477.50	13.5	0.50%