State reports fewest new cases, test results since June
The state’s daily COVID-19 update brought some encouraging news Monday — no new deaths and the fewest newly confirmed cases since June 23 — but it again raised what’s become a nagging question: Why are so few people getting tested?
The 3,818 new test results make up the smallest batch reported by the state Department of Health Services since June 1, and the second smallest since May 11.
Of those results, 266 were positive, or 7%. The last time so few people tested positive in a day, when there were 263 on June 23, it was out of three times as many people being tested (11,794).
And while the seven-day average of new cases has fallen from a high of 930 on July 26 to 678 on Monday, the sevenday percentage of tests coming back positive for COVID-19 has increased over that same period, from 6.8% to 8.5%.
More than two dozen of 100 community test sites listed by DHS as providing “ongoing” services are not active, according to state data, as health care providers last month reported shortages of supplies necessary for testing.
And DHS Secretary Andrea Palm recently said that the state’s testing capacity is less than ideal given students are heading back to school for fall.
Of 75,603 Wisconsin residents who have tested positive for COVID-19:
67,234, or 89%, are listed by state health officials as “recovered,” meaning there’s proof their symptoms have resolved, or more than 30 days have passed since their diagnosis.
7,229, or 9.6%, are listed as “active,” meaning they’re not yet recovered and haven’t died.
At least 5,817, or 7.7%, have been or are hospitalized. It’s not known in about a third of cases whether somebody was hospitalized.
1,122, or 1.5%, have died.
New hospitalizations involving COVID-19 have dipped recently: As of Sunday afternoon, Wisconsin hospitals reported 287 inpatients with confirmed cases of COVID-19 — down 34 from a week earlier — with 104 of them in intensive care. Another 154 inpatients were awaiting test results.