Data Notes for the Week of October 7

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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 September 20—October 3.

Cases increased during this 14-day period with an average of 131.5 cases per day.

We had 122 cases per day for the first seven days and 141 cases per day for the subsequent seven days, leading to a significant increase in cases. The number of people hospitalized with COVID in Dane County hospitals was stable, with an average of 85 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 3,998 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.

Dane County currently has the lowest case rate and second-lowest percent positivity out of all 72 counties in the state.

Since the recent increase in cases began in the summer (likely due to the Delta variant), Dane County has consistently had lower case rates among all age groups than Wisconsin overall (with the exception of a recent spike among college-aged students). Case rates among Dane County residents are lower than case rates in Wisconsin for each age group. The difference is especially pronounced among ages 12-15; case rates among ages 12-15 are 4.5 times higher in Wisconsin overall than in Dane County.

The age-adjusted rate of cases among not fully vaccinated people was 5 times higher than the rate among fully vaccinated people.

 The age-adjusted rate of cases during this 14-day period was 1,017.6 per 100,000 not fully vaccinated residents, which is 5.0 times higher than the rate of 204.6 per 100,000 fully vaccinated residents. Not fully vaccinated youth ages 12-15 had a case rate of 967.7 per 100,000, which is 11.7 times higher than the case rate for fully vaccinated youth ages 12-15, which is 82.4: the lowest rate among all age groups. Not fully vaccinated youth ages 16-17 had a case rate of 1,415.7 per 100,000, which is the highest rate among all age groups and 7.9 times higher than the case rate for fully vaccinated youth ages 16-17, which is 178.2.