Dane County confirmed 36 new coronavirus cases today, which brings the County’s total to 3,899. Of those total cases, 3,057 are considered recovered.
There were only single digit growths today with numbers spread up to those in their 70s The largest growth was for those in their 20s at nine while both those age groups of 10-19 and those in their 30s grew by seven and those in their 40s grew by five. Children between the age of 0-9 grew by three as those who are in theirs 50s and 60s both grew by two and those in their 70s by one.
Dane County reported no new deaths which keeps the total death toll in the county at 34; however, total hospitalizations for the county for COVID-19 grew to 273 today. Currently, there are 24 people hospitalized with COVID-19 while 7 of those are in the ICU.
Of the 36 new cases reported today, nine new cases, or 19.57 percent of all new cases, are in people who identify as Hispanic. Hispanic people now make up 15.31 percent of all COVID-19 related cases in the County while only making up six percent of the population. There were also eight, or 17.39 percent of all new cases, attributed to those who identify as Black. They now make up 12.75 percent of all cases while only making up six percent of the population in Dane County. Those who identify as Asian also grew by two, or 4.35 percent of all new cases. Asian people make up six percent of the population in Dane County and 3.85 percent of all cases.
Yesterday, Public Health of Madison and Dane County released their updated Data Snapshot for July 11 – 24. Currently, for those dates, Dane County has averaged 63 cases per day which is down from last week’s data summary of 80. However, this number is still too high for the Forward Dane reopening plan to move forward, coded as red on the data snapshot metrics. For those dates, only about 52% of those positives have been contacted within 48 hours of being tested which is up from last week’s 43 percent, but this metric also remains in the red. Though last week’s snapshot reported that the percentage of those who tested positive who did not know where they would have gotten COVID from was at 30 percent, this week it rose to 36% keeping this metric red as well.
According to the update information, in the previous 14 days, there were a total of 888 cases with 273, or 31 percent, between the ages of 18 and 25. Of the 888 cases, 736 have been fully interviewed with 403 or 55 percent of those noting that they were likely infected from close contact with another lab confirmed COVID-19 case.
One significant update is the percentage of positives for the County. Currently, for the two weeks between July 11 and 24,, that percentage has averaged 2.5%. As the number of tests increased dramatically the last three weeks, there was a back log of processing tests for Dane County as the focus has been on processing, identifying and assigning an ID to all tests returned (if needed or matching it to an existing ID for those who have been tested previously) while prioritizing positive cases in this process to a case manager to be contacted. This left negatives tests in a “staging” process before being added to the daily data dashboard. Public Health of Madison and Dane County has implemented a method to include those negatives that are still in “staging” to their daily data.
The updated Data Snapshot also gave us the latest information on the impact of COVID surrounding our communities of color for those two weeks as well. Those who identify as Hispanic or Latinx make up 7 percent of tests, 16 percent of cases during those weeks and 5 percent of the hospitalizations. According to the new data for July 11 – July 24, Black people were six percent of all tests, 14 percent of cases and 25 percent of hospitalizations for those dates as well. Black people make up about six percent of the population in Dane County. For those dates as well, Asian people made up four percent of tests and three percent of cases while making up seven percent of the population in Dane County.
We will have an update of today’s statewide numbers later this afternoon.
