Wisconsin’s 7-Day Average For COVID-19 Infections Reaches Lowest Point In 2 Months

New reports of COVID-19 cases are slowly declining in Wisconsin, based on the latest data published by the state Department of Health Services.

DHS reported 406 new cases of the disease Friday, bringing the average for the past seven days to 373 daily cases. It was the lowest the seven-day average has been since March 11, when it was 363 cases per day.

There were 3,165 negative tests reported Friday.

As COVID-19 cases in Wisconsin continue to decline, more of the state’s residents are being vaccinated against the disease.

A total of 4,996,313 doses of the coronavirus vaccine have been administered in Wisconsin as of Friday, with 78.3 percent of Wisconsinites age 65 and up fully vaccinated. And 11.9 percent of the state’s 12- to 15-year-olds have had their first doses of vaccine; that age group became eligible May 13.

As of Friday, 2,356,348 people in Wisconsin, or 40.5 percent of the population, have been fully vaccinated.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people are considered fully vaccinated two weeks after their second of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, or two weeks after a single-dose of Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen vaccine.

Increasing rates of vaccination have provided a sense of hope after a yearlong pandemic that has claimed the lives of 6,986 people in Wisconsin. There were eight new deaths from COVID-19 reported Friday.

Other DHS data from Friday include:

• 607,992 total cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began.
• 3,529,232 total tests administered, 2,921,240 of which have been negative since the pandemic began.
• 30,555 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 3,571 new test results were reported Friday.

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 one county — Polk — 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 12. Wisconsin’s overall COVID-19 activity level is “high.”

For more about COVID-19, visit Coronavirus in Wisconsin.