Dane Co. stuck at Medium as more counties drop to low COVID-19 levels

MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) - Dane Co. stands alone among all Wisconsin counties in the lower two-thirds of the state outside of the Milwaukee metropolitan area with an elevated COVID-19 community level, a new Department of Health Services map shows.

The weekly update, which is based on Centers for Disease Control data, put Madison’s home county in its medium category, along with Milwaukee Co. and three more that surround it. The other ten counties colored the yellow representing medium community levels are among the northernmost in the state.

Just a single county, Florence Co., which borders the Upper Peninsula, was rated as having high levels. The two counties that were at that level slipped back into medium category. The other 56 counties in Wisconsin all were considered as having low COVID-19 community levels.

CDC COVID-19 community levels(Dept. of Health Services)

The CDC uses the number of cases per capita, weighed against hospitalization rates, to determine the community levels. While the federal agency provides a rough update daily and more thorough count is released weekly, which state health officials then use for its map.

The number of high and medium level counties has been on the decline in recent weeks. Last Friday, DHS reported only two of them as being high and 18 medium counties.

Despite the highest single-day total for new confirmed COVID-19 cases, the seven-day rolling-average only rose slightly from Thursday and ends the week notably lower than where it was on Monday. State health officials tallied 1,911 new cases in the past day, nudging the average to 1,262 cases per day over the past week.

Five days earlier, the average stood at 1,372 cases per day before two days of relatively sharp declines, especially compared to the previous two weeks in which the average remained nearly flat. It bottomed out Wednesday at 1,215 cases per day, the lowest point since late April, before a couple of small increases the past couple days.

The seven-day rolling-average remained at four per day over the preceding week, inline with recent trends, DHS’ report indicated. Since the pandemic began, 13,164 Wisconsinites have died from COVID-19 or complications related to the virus.