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PHMDC announces new order as cases drop 31.5 percent over the past two weeks

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This afternoon Public Health of Madison and Dane County announced Emergency Order #14 outlining updated guidelines for gatherings, sports, and other activities, along with new metrics to measure and determine future orders.

The Forward Dane plan was first announced in May of last year as a way for the County to “inform decision-making about tightening restrictions” as COVID-19 began to spread further into the community. The current, updated Forward Dane plan has moved away from this original criteria by incorporating data surrounding vaccine and immunity with some look at two week case count, the time between a lab result and contract tracings, but also what percent of Dane County has been vaccinated, what strain of COVID is prevalent in our community and “the percentage of key populations with disproportionately poor COVID outcomes fully vaccinated.” PHMDC’s weekly Data Snapshot will be where progress is shared for these metrics.

Also, included and to go into effect as of March 10, are updates to gathering limits, restaurant capacity, and the school protective measure policy requirements as well as sports and businesses. Most notable:

  • Restaurants are able to open capacity to 50 percent
  • Indoor gatherings without food can limit attendance to 350 without counting employees, and with food, to 150 without counting employees while maintaining six feet of distance and face coverings.
  • Outdoor gathering is limited to 500 individuals while maintaining six feet of distance. Anything with more than 50 people would require face coverings.
  • Taverns indoor dine-in capacity is now at 25% with approved seating capacity and tables/chairs at least six feet apart between customers who are not members of the same household.

As of this morning, PHMDC reported a net increase of 47 COVID cases, bringing the county’s cumulative total to 40,423.  Overall new weekly cases in the county have dropped this morning by 31.5 percent over the past two weeks, according to today’s dashboard update. For the past 7 days, the county has averaged 12.0 cases per 100,000 residents per day. Active cases dropped to two percent this morning with 827 total cases currently active.

The total number of deaths from COVID-19 for Dane County remains 273. About 65 percent of deaths in Dane County from COVID-19 have been adults older than 80. In total, there have been 11 deaths in the month of February.

According to their update this afternoon, UW is averaging 6,794.3 tests a day for the past seven days as of March 1 for on-campus testing while cases are now averaging 25.4 cases per day for the same time. For the past seven days, cases have decreased for UW students and staff about 61.8 percent while testing on campus has increased by .6 percent. For February 27, the positivity rate for on campus testing for staff and students has remained at 0.4 percent for the past seven days. Seven days ago, the positivity rate for campus was at 1.0 percent.

Dane County’s 14-day positive test rate as of February 26 has remained at 1.0 while the seven-day rate has remained at 0.8. These rates do not include preliminary data from the past four days as that data continues to adjust as more tests are attributed.

For Dane County residents, the number of people ever hospitalized for COVID-19 has grown to 1,238. Currently, there are now 37 people currently hospitalized in area hospitals – including those who live in and outside of Dane County – with 7 of those in the ICU.

More comprehensive data for vaccinations is updated every Wednesday and Friday per week, for Dane County by age, race and ethnicity.  The data is retrieved from the Wisconsin Immunization Registry for all adults and children within the state. The release and the information on the dashboard does warn that some of this information may be incorrect or incomplete as the data is not updated as soon as someone is vaccinated or double checked as consistently as other data gathered.

As of Friday morning, about 93,843 of people have received at least one dose of vaccine — 17.2 percent of all Dane County residents — while 55,915, or 10.2 percent of all residents, have completed both doses. Of those 93,843  residents, 61.5 percent are 65 and older while those aged 35-44 were 15.2 percent of those who received at least one vaccination. Of those who completed the vaccinations, 61.5 percent were also 65 and older. Vaccination data is broken down between those who are 16 – 65+. No data for children is available as the vaccinations have not yet been approved for those under 15.

From all those who have been vaccinated, 2.3 percent are Hispanic or Latinx. Hispanic/Latinx people make up seven percent of the county and are underrepresented in those being vaccinated. Black people, who make up about six percent of the population, only make up 2.5 percent of those who’ve received at least one dose of vaccine. Asian people, who make up 6 percent of the county population, only make up 2.7 percent of those who have received at least one vaccination. Those who are American Indian/Alaskan Native and are .5 percent of the population are .5 percent of those who have received at least one dose of the vaccine.

Madison365 has updated our weekly map of COVID-19 cases in the county by census tract.

We will have an update later this afternoon for statewide numbers.