Public Health of Madison and Dane County reported a net increase of 82 COVID cases today, bringing the county’s cumulative total to 40,111. While it’s not clear how many are UW students, 42 of the news cases — 51.2 percent — were in people aged 18-22. Adults aged 23-29 and those in their 30s grew by 10 each as well. Cases overall for the county in the past two weeks have grown by 16.2 percent according to today’s dashboard update.
UW is averaging 6,752.9 tests a day for the past seven days for on-campus testing while cases are now averaging 66.4 cases per day for the same time – increasing from yesterday’s reported 63.7 cases per day. For the past seven days, cases have increased for UW students and staff about 108.5 percent while testing on campus has increased by 19 percent. The positivity rate for on campus testing for staff and students has increased to 1.0 percent for the past seven days. Seven days ago, the positivity rate for campus was at 0.5 percent.
From UW’s dashboard, preliminary data attributes 29 cases to February 22, 20 cases to February 21, and 67 cases to February 20 for UW students in on and off campus testing. This data may be adjusted in the coming days. Any cases attributed to February 23 will not be updated until after 2 pm when UW updates their dashboard.
Since February 11, a total of 335 UW students and staff have tested positive out of more than 37,000 tests – an increase from the week of February 4 when there a total of 296 positive tests for UW staff and students out of more than 37,000 tests.
For the past seven days, Dane County has averaged 18.3 cases per day per 100,000 residents, a slight increase from yesterday’s reported 17.5 cases per 100,000 residents.
Hospitalizations in Dane County have dropped down to 37 people currently hospitalized for COVID-19. This includes people who reside in and out of Dane County. Of the 38 people currently hospitalized, 12 are in the ICU.
Dane County’s total death toll from COVID-19 remained at 272 this morning. About 64 percent of all deaths from COVID-19 in Dane County have been in those 80 and older. As of this morning, February now has a total of 10 deaths attributed to it.December of 2020 has the most deaths of COVID-19 for Dane County with a total of 87.
Testing has increased as UW students have returned and the campus is requiring regular testing of all students and UW staff and faculty on campus. This could lead to an increase in total positive cases, as well as a decrease in positive test rate. Based on preliminary data of all tests, the County is averaging 7,586.3 tests per day for the past seven days.
According to this week’s new Data Snapshot for February 1 through February 14, 39 percent of cases were UW Madison students or staff while 65 percent of tests for the county were run by UW’s University Health Services. Even when removing those tests and cases from the county’s total, Dane County’s percent of positivity for those two weeks was at 2.6. With UW, the percent of positivity was at 1.4 percent.
As of this morning Dane County, the 14-day positive test rate as of February 20 has remained at 1.2 while the seven-day rate has remained at 1.3 as well. These rates do not include preliminary data from the past four days as that data continues to adjust as more tests are attributed. Preliminary information shows that February 23 has a rate of positivity at .6, February 22 has increased to 0.7 and February 21 has remained at a rate of 1.0. This information will adjust has more information becomes available.
For Dane County residents, the number of people ever hospitalized for COVID-19 has grown to 1,223.
More comprehensive data for vaccinations was unveiled on Friday morning as part of the PHMDC’s Data Dashboard. The data, to be updated every Wednesday and Friday per week, breaks down vaccinations in Dane County by age, and now by 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 this morning, about 91,435 of people have received at least one dose of vaccine — 16.7 percent of all Dane County residents — while 52,001, or 9.5 percent of all residents, have completed both doses. Of those 91,435 residents, 59.2 percent are 65 and older while those aged 35-44 were 15.0 percent of those who received at least one vaccination. Of those who completed the vaccinations, 50.3 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.
Though there were numeric increases in the number of communities of color in Dane County to receive at least one dose of the vaccine, the percentages for most communities remained the same as reported this past Friday. The percent of those who are Hispanice/Latinx remains at 2.3 percent. 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, also remained at 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, continue to only make up 2.8 percent of those who have received at least one vaccination. Those who are American Indian/Alaskan Native and are .5 percent of the population, however, saw a drop in their percentage, decreasing from Friday’s reported .5 percent of those who have received at least one dose of the vaccine to only about .4 percent according to this morning’s update.
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 after 3 pm.
