Positive tests across Wisconsin top 15,000
Nearly 9,000 COVID-19 patients are now considered recovered
Four hundred more Wisconsinites have tested positive for COVID-19.
The state Department of Health Services reported Sunday that 7,277 more COVID-19 tests were processed and 400 — 5.5% — came back positive.
As of Sunday, 15,277 people in Wisconsin have tested positive for COVID-19 and 186,206 tests have come back negative.
Nearly 9,000 people who were diagnosed with coronavirus have recovered — that’s about 59% of cases.
DHS considers 5,767 people — 38% of all cases — to be actively sick.
Three people have died from the virus since Saturday, bringing Wisconsin’s death toll to 510 as of Sunday evening.
Half of those deaths happened in Milwaukee County, which reports that 256 deaths can be attributed to the disease.
The county has now surpassed 6,000 coronavirus cases, with a total of 6,189 positive cases reported Sunday morning.
The city of Milwaukee accounted for 4,871 of those cases.
In Milwaukee County, COVID-19 patients make up 11% of all hospital patients. The county reported Sunday that hospital intensive care units were at 61% capacity, and 65% of floor beds were being used.
The Wisconsin Hospital Association said Sunday that 399 patients across the state are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, and 126 of those patients are in intensive care units.
The percentage of patients who have required hospitalization for their illness during the pandemic remains around 15%.
More than 5.3 million cases of coronavirus have been confirmed globally, with 343,500 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. In the United States, 97,400 people have died and more than 1.6 million people have been infected as of Sunday afternoon.
Meanwhile, another leader of a large faith community in southeast Wisconsin is asking that Milwaukee’s mayor lift restrictions on the number of people allowed to gather in churches.
In an open letter to Mayor Tom Barrett, the Rev. Dr. John Wille — president and bishop of the South Wisconsin
District of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod — writes that the city’s continued restrictions on large gatherings “interferes with our constitutionally guaranteed freedom to express ourselves without government interference or regulation.”
The district represents nearly 300 institutions — including 23 congregations in the city.
Vowing that social distancing would be maintained and national guidelines for sanitizing and otherwise keeping people safe from the disease would be followed, Wille asked that all churches be allowed to hold gatherings in groups of 50 people or 25% capacity, whichever is greater, by May 31 — Pentecost Sunday.
If that doesn’t happen, Wille writes, “we will take the steps necessary to ensure our right of ‘free assembly’ and ‘free exercise’; freedoms assured to us by the Constitution, freedoms granted by our Creator in natural law.”
The Archdiocese of Milwaukee, which covers 10 counties across southeast Wisconsin, said last week it is moving forward with plans to begin Masses at 25% capacity on May 31 at all its nearly 200 parishes.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Jim Owczarski contributed to this report.