Data Notes for the Week of September 16

Read 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 dashboard page). The data below are from August 30—September 12.

Cases were stable during this 14-day period and there was an average of 107 cases per day (58.5 per day were among people not vaccinated).

Last week there was an average of 109 cases per day. Hospitalizations increased during this 14-day period, with an average of 83 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 was 3.3% and an average of 3,188 tests were conducted per day. 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.

In August 2021, a person not fully vaccinated in Dane County was 5 times more likely to test positive for COVID, 21 times more likely to be hospitalized for COVID, and 20 times more likely to die from COVID than a fully vaccinated person.

• The age-adjusted case rate in August was 322.5 per 100,000 fully vaccinated people and 1,566.2 per 100,000 not fully vaccinated people.
• The age-adjusted hospitalization rate in August was 4.0 per 100,000 fully vaccinated people and 84.9 per 100,000 not fully vaccinated people.
• The age-adjusted death rate in August was 0.5 per 100,000 fully vaccinated people and 8.9 per 100,000 not fully vaccinated people.

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 22.7 for ages 0-11 (those who can’t be vaccinated) and 18.2 for ages 12-17 (those who can be vaccinated). In August, children under the age of 12 who cannot be vaccinated had higher case rates than all age groups of vaccinated people, but had the lowest case rates among all age groups of unvaccinated people, and none were hospitalized or died from COVID.

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. Ages 8-11 have a percent positivity of 5.9%, 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.

We have very high levels of vaccination.

73.2% of all Dane County residents have received at least one dose of vaccine and 70.2% have completed the vaccine series. 84.6% of the eligible population (ages 12+) have received at least one dose of vaccine and 81.1% have completed the series. During this period, we had an average of 573 vaccine doses administered per day.