Data Notes for the Week of February 4

Read the 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 (data from January 18 through January 31):
 

There was no significant change in cases during this 14 day period.

Dane County’s 14-day average number of cases is 118 per day, down from 135 last snapshot. In this 14-day period there were 1,655 total cases. Percent positivity is at 2%. During this 14-day period, 54% of tests among Dane County residents were conducted by UW’s University Health Services (UHS). When excluding cases and tests from UHS, Dane County still has a low percent positivity of 3.7%.

Vaccination coverage has increased among ages 65+.

Last week, 15.7% of Dane County residents age 65+ had received at least one vaccine dose. As of February 1, coverage has increased to 28.9%. Overall, 10.4% of Dane County has received at least one dose of vaccine. 74,929 doses have been administered to Dane County residents and 56,798 people have been vaccinated with at least one dose.

Dane County is following Wisconsin Department of Health Services’ guidelines for vaccine prioritization. Frontline health care personnel, residents in skilled nursing and long term care facilities, police and fire personnel, and people 65 years old and older are currently being vaccinated. Keep in mind there are still far more people eligible for vaccine than there are doses available. It will take time to vaccinate everyone in these groups. 

On January 26, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) announced the groups that will be eligible for vaccine starting on March 1, though the start date is dependent on the vaccine supply allocated to Wisconsin from the federal government. See our vaccination page for more information.

2.8% of all cases were associated with assisted living or skilled nursing facilities, which is the lowest number we’ve had in 15 weeks.

We expect to see this number continue to decrease as we vaccinate more people age 65+ and staff at long term care facilities. In December and January, out of the 127 Dane County residents we lost to COVID-19, two-thirds were residents of a long term care facility. A downward trend in cases among long term care facilities is a hopeful sign that COVID-19 deaths will continue to decrease in the future.

17% of cases were UW-Madison students or staff.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW) resumed spring classes on Monday, January 25. They continue to track the results of COVID-19 tests among current faculty, staff and students on their dashboard.