There have been 28,659 positive cases of COVID-19 in Wisconsin as of Tuesday, according to the state Department of Health Services. That’s an increase of 601 cases from the day before — the second-highest single day increase the state has seen. The highest, May 29, saw 733 new positive cases in one day.
Health officials reported seven additional coronavirus deaths Tuesday. In total, 784 people in the state have died from COVID-19.
DHS reported 539,539 total negative tests for the coronavirus, an increase of 12,810 from Monday to Tuesday.
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As of Tuesday, the seven-day average of new confirmed COVID-19 cases reached 475, a high last seen at the end of May.
Wisconsin’s daily testing capacity — based on the availability of test supplies and adequate staffing — has grown from 120 available lab tests in early March to 18,434 as of Monday. The number of actual tests reported on Tuesday was 12,781.
The percentage of positive tests has been decreasing over the past two days, going down to 4.7 percent on Tuesday. It was 5.3 percent on Monday, and 7.1 percent on Sunday — the highest it had been since May 20.
Based on the state’s gating criteria, Wisconsin is no longer seeing a 14-day downward trajectory in reports of COVID-like cases, and DHS is no longer reporting a downward trajectory of positive tests as a percent of total tests within a 14-day period.
According to DHS, 3,446 people have been hospitalized because of the virus as of Tuesday. That means at least 12 percent of people who have tested positive for the coronavirus in the state have been hospitalized. DHS officials said they don’t know the hospitalization history of 8,491 people, or 30 percent.
On June 24, DHS launched a new data dashboard that looks at COVID-19 activity on a county and regional level. That dashboard shows that 22 counties in the state had a “high” COVID-19 activity level as of last Wednesday — a designation based on a county’s number of cases per 100,000 residents over the past 14 days, and the extent to which that case rate is increasing.
The dashboard also listed the overall state’s COVID-19 activity level as “high.”
La Crosse, Trempealeau, Milwaukee and Lafayette counties had the highest case rates in the state, all with over 100 cases per 100,000 residents reported over the past two weeks.
There have been confirmed cases in all 72 of Wisconsin’s counties.
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