Data Notes for the Week of August 27
posted
Today we released this week’s data snapshot. If you’re new to the data snapshot, we publish a weekly summary of the status for each of our metrics (you can find past issues on our data and metrics page). We have a few notes for this week’s issue:
Our average number of cases per day is still red and has declined slightly from last week.
The number of cases per day metric continues to stay red during this 14-day period. Cases per day ranged from 16 to 63, with an average of 41 cases per day. Last week’s average number of cases per day was 45.
In this 14-day period there were 577 total cases:
- Of all 577 cases, 342 (59%) were tested at community testing sites (336 at the Alliant Energy Center).
- Of 516 people who have been fully interviewed so far, 198 (38%) reported attending a gathering or party with people outside of their household.
- Of 516 people fully interviewed so far, 271 (53%) identified the likely source of infection as close contact with another lab-confirmed COVID-19 case.
- Of 516 people fully interviewed so far, 80 (16%) were associated with a cluster: 28 from workplaces, 17 from congregate facilities, 11 from childcare facilities, 10 from bars and restaurants, 6 from health care settings (such as home health or hospitals), 3 from sports teams, 3 from college-aged housing, and 2 from other clusters.
- Of the 11 cases from childcare facilities, 4 were children and 7 were adults.
- Of the 28 cases from workplaces, 6 cases were from more public-facing businesses (such as hotels and golf clubs)
We are tracking cases among UW students and staff.
Due to the expected influx of many students to our community, on July 28 we began identifying and tracking people who test positive for COVID who are UW students or faculty/staff. During this period (August 11-24), 46 UW students and 8 staff tested positive for COVID-19.
Of the 54 UW cases in this 14-day period:
- 27 (50%) were tested at the Alliant Energy Center, 20 (37%) were tested by UHS, and 7 (13%) were tested at other sites.
- 46 (85%) were between the ages of 18-22.
- 6 (11%) were associated with a cluster: 3 from sports teams and 3 from college-aged housing (including sororities, fraternities, near-campus apartments).
The target for grades 3-5 has been met for one week, and the clock has started for sustaining this target.
The K-12 school metrics are detailed on our website. K-2 is currently open, having met its target. Grades 3-5 have met the target for one week and need to remain at or below 39 for three additional weeks (see table below for details). Note that recent days have seen an uptick in cases, so Dane County might not sustain the target next week.
| Grade levels | Target for Possibly Resuming In-Person Pupil Instruction | Status |
|---|---|---|
| K-2 | A 14-day average of 54 or fewer cases per day, sustained for four weeks | Met on August 18, may open per Emergency Order #9 |
| 3-5 | A 14-day average of 39 or fewer cases per day, sustained for four weeks | Clock started on August 22, which was the first day the 14-day average was 39 or less (average was 38.9 for the 14-day period of August 9-22). The next 14-day average will be for August 16 to August 29, and the average will be posted to our website on September 3. |
| 6-12 | A 14-day average of 19 or fewer cases per day, sustained for four weeks | Not met |
The community spread metric holds steady for another week.
Four out of every ten people with COVID-19 do not know where they could have been exposed, same as last week. A high percent of cases who don’t know how they got sick means there likely are people unknowingly spreading the virus in the community.
Dane County is still classified as “high activity level” on the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) COVID-19 Activity Level Tracker.
Our Forward Dane metric for cases (see the first section of this blog) accounts for burden but not trajectory. The DHS metric combines the burden of cases over a two-week period (number of cases per 100,000 residents) and the trajectory, which measures the percent change in cases from the previous week to the current week and whether that change is statistically significant. As of the DHS update on 8/26/20, Dane County has a high burden of 110 cases per 100,000 residents, and a trajectory of no statistically significant change in the number of cases from the most recent 7-day period compared to the prior 7-day period. This puts us at a high activity level. We want to reduce our activity level in order to better control the spread of COVID-19 in our community.
This content is free for use with credit to Public Health Madison & Dane County .
