New reports of COVID-19 cases are holding steady in Wisconsin, based on the latest data published by the state Department of Health Services.
The DHS website is experiencing technical difficulties; data from Saturday wasn’t released until later in the evening and Sunday numbers haven’t been posted as of the time of WPR publication.
On Friday evening, DHS released a statement following the new guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that say fully vaccinated people can resume doing numerous activities without wearing face masks.
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“The science is clear: if you are fully vaccinated, you are protected, and you can start doing the things that you stopped doing because of the pandemic,” said DHS Secretary-designee Karen Timberlake. “For vaccinated people, this means returning to the Wisconsin way of life we all enjoy.”
Some retailers have announced an end to their mask mandates, according to the New York Times; these include Costco, Publix, Starbucks, Trader Joe’s and Walmart.
DHS reported 550 new cases of the disease Saturday, bringing the average for the past seven days to 448 daily cases. One week ago, the average was 553 daily cases.
There were 3,758 negative tests reported Saturday.
As COVID-19 cases in Wisconsin continue to decline, more of the state’s residents are being vaccinated against the disease.
Although most of the data mentioned is dated Saturday, May 15, the DHS site does list updated vaccine data for Sunday. A total of 4,869,481 doses of the coronavirus vaccine have been administered in Wisconsin as of Sunday, with 78 percent of Wisconsinites age 65 and up fully vaccinated.
As of Sunday, 2,294,673 people in Wisconsin, or 39.4 percent of the population, have been fully vaccinated.
Increasing rates of vaccination have provided a sense of hope after a yearlong pandemic that has claimed the lives of 6,958 people in Wisconsin. There were four new deaths from COVID-19 reported Saturday.
Other DHS data from Saturday include:
- 605,926 total cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began.
- 3,508,069 total tests administered, 2,902143 of which have been negative since the pandemic began.
- 30,189 people have been hospitalized because of the disease, or 5 percent of all positive cases, since the pandemic began.
- Daily testing capacity remains at 59,273, though only 4,308 new test results were reported Saturday.
Coronavirus rates vary from county to county. In order to track COVID-19 activity levels, DHS looks at the number of new cases per a county’s population over a 14-day period — and whether there’s an upward or downward trend in new cases. Activity levels range from “very high,” “high,” “medium,” to “low.”
As of Wednesday, DHS data showed the state had two counties — Polk and St. Croix — with a “very high” level, while the majority of Wisconsin counties had “high” levels of activity. There were growing case trajectories in one county and shrinking trajectories in right. Wisconsin’s overall COVID-19 activity level is “high.”
For more about COVID-19, visit Coronavirus in Wisconsin.
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