State officials report 870 more confirmed COVID-19 cases
Wisconsin officials reported 870 more confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, as little changed in a weekly update of the Department of Health Services’ county coronavirus activity levels: In most places, it’s “high.”
Wednesday’s new positive tests constituted 5.9% of all tests reported.
Five more people died from COVID-19, bringing the state’s official toll to 911.
The state’s new cases were up 11.3% from the previous week but still lower than the nationwide rate of 140 cases per 100,000.
DHS updated its own weekly virus activity ratings on Wednesday, with Wisconsin staying at a “high” level and all but 11 counties in the same category.
The weekly ratings are based on a combination of total new cases per 100,000 people over the past two weeks and the percentage change in new cases between the past seven days and the seven days before that.
Statewide, there were 210 new cases per 100,000 people over the past two weeks. The hardest-hit counties in terms of cases per 100,000 people were Iron (800), Milwaukee (430) and Waukesha (350). Lowest was Rusk County, with just one case, or 6.9 cases per 100,000 residents.
Note that state reports of new cases may lag due to the time between symptom onset and testing/reporting, and deaths may not correspond with actual date of death.
Some county health departments are also behind in reporting negative test results, which may distort the state’s reported data.
And daily hospital data once reported by the Wisconsin Hospital Association is no longer current after changes to requirements made by the U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services. A WHA representative has said the association is working to restore that resource.
DHS does report a cumulative number of residents hospitalized by the virus, which reached 4,539, or 8.9% of the 51,049 residents who have tested positive.
That total has climbed faster in recent weeks, up 46 Wednesday and 73 Tuesday. Tuesday’s increase was the highest in a day since April 7, and more than six times as high as a low point of 11 on June 28.
A DHS representative said Tuesday that this cumulative number comes from reports by local health departments during their case investigations and should not be interpreted as new admissions. It’s possible that there could be a lag between a hospital admission and the time that the health department entered the data for that patient.