Data Notes for the Week of April 8

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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). The data below are from March 22 to April 4.

There was a significant increase in cases during this 14-day period.

The last time we had a significant increase in cases was in January. The 14-day average number of cases is 59, up from 47 last week. 11% of cases were UW students or staff and 67% of tests 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 2.5%.

More than 1 out of every 4 Dane County residents have completed their vaccine series.

Nearly 28% of residents have completed their vaccine series and 45.5% of residents have at least one dose of vaccine. 55% of eligible Dane County residents (those that are age 16+) have received at least one dose of vaccine. 90.5% of Dane County residents age 65+ have received at least one dose of vaccine, which is the second highest among Wisconsin counties. More than 4 out of every 5 of those age 65+ have completed their series.

An average of 6,164 doses of vaccine were administered to Dane County residents each day during this 14-day period, which is a 9% increase from last week.

As of this Monday, all people ages 16 and older are eligible for vaccine in Wisconsin.  Based on our current 7-day average of 4,312 newly vaccinated people per day, we could expect 80% of the eligible Dane County population to have at least one dose of vaccine by May 3.

Visit our website for eligibility details and learn more about where to get vaccinated.

Cases among youth under the age of 16 have increased over the past month.

Cases in youth have been increasing recently, both in Dane County and nationally. During this 14-day period, 16.5% of Dane County resident cases were among youth under the age of 16; during the rest of the pandemic, youth under the age of 16 made up 9.6% of cases.

Severe illness due to COVID-19 among children has been rare, but we know kids can transmit the virus to adults. While clinical trials are underway for COVID-19 vaccines for children under the age of 16, it will be some time before children are able to get vaccinated. That means that children are still very vulnerable to contracting COVID-19, especially with the more transmissible B.1.1.7 variant, as evidenced by a recent childcare center outbreak.

It’s important for children to get tested if they are showing symptoms or have an exposure, and for the adults in children’s lives such as parents, grandparents, and teachers to get vaccinated as soon as they can in order to protect themselves, and the children who aren’t yet able to be vaccinated!