Wisconsin reports 484 new coronavirus cases
No new deaths for third straight day
Wisconsin reported 484 new coronavirus cases Monday, the first time in a week that new cases for a single day were below 500.
New cases reported on Mondays, however, are typically fewer than what is reported later in the week, which may reflect a decline in testing or reporting over the weekend. And, for the second week in a row, the new positive tests are the most the state has ever announced on a Monday.
For the third straight day, reported deaths remained at 796.
The 484 cases made up 9.2% of the 4,802 tests processed since Sunday. That percent positive rate has declined slightly from a high of 11% on July 4, a level that hadn’t been seen since early May.
The state’s seven-day average of new cases, which on Monday was 572, has been rising fairly steadily since June 17, when the seven-day average was 265 new cases per day, according to the Department of Health Services website.
Much of that rise in new cases has been attributed to young people. Residents ages 20-29 now make up just under a fourth of the state’s more than 32,000 cases.
DHS officials and Gov. Tony Evers have gone two weeks without holding a media briefing with reporters on the status of the virus outbreak in Wisconsin — an opportunity for questions typically held weekly, and sometimes twice weekly, when cases are trending upward. The last briefing was held June 17, when new cases were under 300 per day and the percent positive rate was less than 5%.
The state is now reporting that nearly eight in 10 people who had contracted the virus have recovered, leaving just over 6,000 active cases as of Monday.
According to the Wisconsin Hospital Association, 255 patients across the state were hospitalized with COVID-19 on Monday. Just over a fourth are in an intensive care unit. Although hospitalizations have risen slightly in the past few days, they are still relatively low compared to earlier this year.
The state’s activity ratings, which measure how much virus transmission is occurring in each Wisconsin county, were as follows as of July 1 (change in activity level from last week in parentheses):
High: Brown, Calumet (up), Clark, Columbia (up), Dane, Douglas (up), Dunn (up), Eau Claire, Forest (up), Grant, Iowa (up), Iron (up), Jefferson, Juneau (up), Kenosha, Kewaunee (up),
La Crosse, Lafayette, Manitowoc, Marathon, Menominee (up), Milwaukee, Monroe, Outagamie, Ozaukee (up), Pierce (up), Portage, Racine, Rock, St. Croix (up), Trempealeau, Walworth, Washington (up), Waukesha, Waupaca, Winnebago
Medium: Adams, Barron, Buffalo, Chippewa, Crawford, Dodge, Door (up), Florence, Fond du Lac, Green, Green Lake, Jackson, Langlade, Marinette, Marquette, Oconto, Polk, Sauk, Sawyer (up), Shawano, Sheboygan, Taylor, Vernon, Waushara, Wood
Low: Ashland, Bayfield, Burnett, Lincoln, Oneida (down), Pepin, Price, Richland, Rusk (down), Vilas, Washburn
New weekly rankings are expected on Wednesday.