State’s new cases down 50% from month ago
New daily COVID-19 cases are down 50% from their peak a month ago in Wisconsin, according to state Department of Health Services data.
And contact tracers can again handle their daily caseloads after being overwhelmed in October and November, DHS Secretary-designee Andrea Palm said in a news conference.
Health officials said cases, hospitalizations and deaths are still too high. They are hopeful residents will continue to practice social distancing and wear masks to drive numbers down further.
“The level of disease activity remains high but has plateaued,” said DHS chief medical officer Ryan Westergaard. “We need to continue and double down on all of the things that we’ve been doing.”
Since new daily cases have declined, local health departments have reported they aren’t as overwhelmed as they were, Palm said. A corps of contact tracers at the state level have been able to handle extra cases local
workers can’t finish, and on Thursday the state announced it is launching a mobile app to alert residents if they were exposed to COVID-19.
“We’re hopeful that the other activities like contact tracing (are) going to have an even greater impact now that we have some breathing room and we’re out of that crisis mode,” Westergaard said.
New cases reported: 3,643
New deaths reported: 59
Number hospitalized: 1,363 (intensive care: 298); down 914 patients from one month ago
Seven-day average of daily cases: 3,191 (down 3,238 cases from 1 month ago)
Seven-day average of daily deaths: 44 (down two from one month ago)
The average positivity rate — firsttime positive tests over the last seven days — was 27.8% Thursday.
Total cases since the start of pandemic: 448,441 (40,378 active cases)
Total deaths: 4,255
Contact tracing app to launch
The new mobile app Gov. Tony Evers’ office announced Thursday will alert
Wisconsinites if they’ve been close to a person who’s tested positive for COVID-19. WI Exposure Notification aims to bolster the state’s contact tracing efforts.
People who test positive will receive a code to be entered into the app, which will anonymously notify devices that their phone has shared Bluetooth signals with during the period of time they may have been contagious. The app will launch Dec. 23.