Data Notes for the Week of May 19, 2022

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You can find past issues on our data and dashboard page. The data below are from May 2-May 15.

Cases were high but stable during this 14-day period with an average of 376 cases per day.

Last snapshot, the average was 246 cases per day. The number of people hospitalized with COVID in Dane County hospitals increased with an average of 41 people hospitalized each day. Percent positivity during this 14-day period was 13.4% and an average of 2,808 tests were conducted per day.

Percent positivity is high, indicating that we are likely to not be capturing all new cases through testing. Some of this may be due to the popularity of home COVID tests, which are not captured in these data. Testing patterns likely have shifted, such as people testing less overall or testing less when asymptomatic, which may be affecting our percent positivity to some degree.

Over the past four weeks, cases increased among all age groups except 8-11 and 80+, who had stable trends. Ages 8-11 currently have the highest case rate at 107.9 per 100,000 per day, and ages 40-49 have the highest percent positivity at 16.0%.

In February-April 2022, a person not fully vaccinated in Dane County was 4.2 times more likely to be hospitalized for COVID than a person fully vaccinated with a booster or additional dose.

A person not fully vaccinated in Dane County was 1.6 times more likely to test positive for COVID than a person fully vaccinated with a booster or additional dose.

We are presenting data for three months combined instead of a single month, as both hospitalizations and deaths from COVID have been quite low. When they are this low, rates can be unstable, and it becomes less likely that we’re able to detect meaningful differences between groups. There was no significant difference in death rates between vaccination groups for February-April.

92% of Dane County residents who have died from COVID in the past nine months have been age 50+, and 62% have been age 70+.

77% of those under the age of 50 who have died have not been fully vaccinated. Those most at risk of dying from COVID are older individuals, and those who are not vaccinated. With case activity currently at an increased level than earlier this spring, older adults and/or those at high risk for severe disease should consider additional precautions, including thinking about getting a second COVID vaccine booster dose.