Data Notes for the Week of September 9

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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 dashboard page). The data below are from August 23—September 5.

Cases were stable during this 14-day period and there was an average of 109 cases per day.

Last week there was an average of 105 cases per day. Hospitalizations were also stable during this 14-day period, with an average of 78 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Dane County hospitals each day. We are not able to discern whether these hospitalizations are among Dane County residents or among patients transferred to the Dane County hospitals from the surrounding areas.

Percent positivity went down slightly from last week. It’s currently 3.7% and was 3.9% last week. An average of 2,954 tests were conducted per day during this period. Because percent positivity has been holding steady and has remained under 5%, this is a good indication that we’re testing at the level we need to in order to find cases.

Over the past four weeks, cases have stabilized among all child age groups, but are still higher than they were at this time last year.

The 14-day average of daily new COVID cases (per 100,000 people) is 23.8 for ages 0-11 (those who can’t be vaccinated) and 16.5 for ages 12-17 (those who can be vaccinated).

Three Dane County children ages 12-17 who have tested positive in the past four weeks have been hospitalized for COVID, none of whom were vaccinated. The current 7-day statewide average of admissions for ages 0-17 is 4 per day (8/31-9/6), which is slightly higher than last week’s average of 3 per day (8/24-8/30). The peak was 6 per day in fall 2020 (10/28-11/3).

Ages 8-11 have a percent positivity of 7.7%, indicating that more testing may be needed among this age group. Everyone should get tested as soon as possible when having symptoms. The most common symptoms in children are cough and/or fever but can include many of the same symptoms as adults (e.g., fatigue, headache, congestion, sore throat, loss of taste or smell). There are more testing options than ever before in Dane County and surrounding areas.

Over the past four weeks, cases have been stable among fully vaccinated people but have increased by 16% among people who are not fully vaccinated.

Dane County’s current 7-day average of daily new COVID cases is 18.9 per 100,000 residents. The 7-day rate for unvaccinated residents is 34.2 per 100,000, which is 2.8 times as high as the rate for fully vaccinated residents, which is 12.0 per 100,000. 30% of the unvaccinated cases were kids under the age of 12 who can’t yet be vaccinated.

We have very high levels of vaccination.

72.9% of all Dane County residents have received at least one dose of vaccine and 69.8% have completed the vaccine series. 84.2% of the eligible population (ages 12+) have received at least one dose of vaccine and 80.6% have completed the series.

During this period, we had an average of 668 vaccine doses administered per day, which is up 4% from last week and up 39% from our low of 480 doses per day seven weeks ago!