Respiratory Illness Dashboard
Key Takeaways for the Week of October 29, 2026
- Data Note: Over the weekend, the CDC had problems receiving some emergency department data. Because of this, the levels on our landing page are likely lower than they really are.
- Flu keeps rising. Flu has been going up in all age groups since early October, and a growing share of flu lab tests are coming back positive. Now is a good time to get up to date on your flu, COVID, and RSV vaccines. Read our guidance and recommendations.
- Respiratory illness is high in young kids. Kids 4 and under have high levels of respiratory illness overall.
- Some cold viruses are rising while others drop. Parainfluenza, a common virus that can cause colds and croup in young kids, is rising in lab tests. Some good news: rhinovirus and enterovirus, which also cause cold-like illness, are finally starting to drop.
- DHS respiratory wastewater trends in one place. Last week, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) launched a new dashboard that shows wastewater trends for COVID, flu, and RSV on a single page. We've updated our landing page to match.
Dashboard Update Schedule
This dashboard is updated on Thursdays at 12:30 pm. If the dashboard is not updated then, we may be experiencing technical issues; check back at 4:30 pm. If we experience a delay in receiving data from one of our data sources, that data element will be updated the following week.
About These Data
Learn more about these data by reading our data notes
How to Prevent Illness
Other Data
- Wisconsin Department of Health Services
- National Respiratory Illness data
- National Flu data
- Wisconsin State Lab of Hygiene