Yesterday afternoon, Public Health of Madison and Dane County released their new Data Snapshot for October 13 – 25 which showed the spread of COVID-19 Dane County has shifted outside of Madison and specifically impacting 10 municipalities more than Dane County overall.
Over the past two weeks, Dane County has seen an overall rate of 55 new cases per 10,000 per the update, but according to the chart below, Cambridge, Brooklyn and Marshall and seven other areas saw a significant higher rate of cases than the County overall.
As noted last week, in September, only 28 percent of cases resided outside of Madison, but current data from October reveal that it is now at 56 percent. This morning, Madison365 has updated our weekly map to showcase the increase in the number of cases in the county by census tract for the weeks of October 15 – October 29.
From October 13 – October 26, there were 2,992 total cases. Of those cases, 2,255 were fully interviewed, which found:
- 35 percent of cases had household contact with another COVID-19 case
- 31 percent of cases had non-household contact with another COVID-19 case
- 24 percent of cases attended a gathering or party in the past two weeks
- 7 percent of cases were from UW – 194 were UW students and 35 were college staff
Also provided from the data, the following clusters were found:
- 23 unique clusters in workplaces that are not public-facing, with 48 associated cases
- 15 unique clusters in public-facing business/services with 34 associated cases
- 11 childcare facilities with 27 associated cases (12 children and 15 adults)
- 5 skilled nursing facilities with 29 associated cases
- 4 schools with 11 associated cases – 4 adults and 7 children
- 4 healthcare facilties with 26 associated cases
For October 13 – October 26, Dane County has averaged 214 cases per day, an increase from last week’s 167 – which keeps this metric in the red according to PHMDC’s reopening plan. The data also shows, for this two week period, the percentage of positive tests for the most recent 14 days has increased to 5.0 percent from last week’s 3.9 percent – moving this metric to yellow.
This spread also comes at a time when PHMDC reported last week that they would be focused on a crisis model for contacting tracing. According to data collected from Public Health of Madison and Dane County, contact tracing hit a low of 26 percent for those two weeks – down from 36 percent the previous week while the number of cases who tested positive and didn’t know where they would have gotten COVID-19 from is at 31 percent. This keeps both metrics in the red as well.
The snapshot included a look at hospitalizations, which have continued to grow in Dane County as well as across the state. Though only 55 people were hospitalized in that two-week period, those who identify as Hispanic or Latinx continue to be over represented in the data for both cases and hospitalizations. The Hispanic or Latinx community make up six percent of the population in Dane County which was in line with representation in testing this week. However, Hispanic or Latinx residents were 16 percent of cases and 12 percent of hospitalizations for October 13 through October 26. Black people in our county also were over-represented in cases and underrepresented in testing. With six percent of the population, Black people only accounted for five percent of testing, but six percent of cases and seven percent of hospitalizations. Those who identify as Asian were also underrepresented in testing and cases, making up seven percent of the population, but only four percent in testing and three percent in cases. Those who are American Indian/Alaskan, however, are .3 percent of the population but .5 percent of cases and 0 percent in hospitalizations.
Hospitalizations among age groups continue to increase in the County as 2 percent of cases from October 13 through October 26 were hospitalized with those 70 and older making up 12 percent of cases.
In terms of age groups for that two week period as those in their 80s and 90s growing the largest those past two weeks. Those aged 23-29 and those aged 30-39 still had the largest percentage of cases with 16 percent and 17 percent, respectively.
Madison365 will have an update numbers for the state later this afternoon.