Number Of New COVID-19 Cases, Deaths Dip On Sunday

New reports of COVID-19 continues to decrease in Wisconsin, based on the latest data published by the state Department of Health Services.

DHS reported 147 new cases of the disease Sunday, bringing the average for the past seven days to 324 daily cases.

There were 2,799 negative tests reported Sunday.

As COVID-19 cases in Wisconsin continue to decline, more of the state’s residents are being vaccinated against the disease.

A total of 5,044,653 doses of the coronavirus vaccine have been administered in Wisconsin as of Sunday, with 78.5 percent of Wisconsinites age 65 and up fully vaccinated. DHS numbers say 14.2 percent of the state’s 12- to 15-year-olds have had their first doses of vaccine. That age group became eligible May 13.

As of Sunday, 2,381,053 people in Wisconsin, or 40.9 percent of the population, have been fully vaccinated.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people are considered fully vaccinated two weeks after their second of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, or two weeks after a single-dose of Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen vaccine.

Increasing rates of vaccination have provided a sense of hope after a yearlong pandemic that has claimed the lives of 6,989 people in Wisconsin. There were no new deaths from COVID-19 reported Sunday.

Other DHS data from Sunday include:

• 608,432 total cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began.
• 3,536,069 total tests administered, 2,927,637 of which have been negative since the pandemic began.
• 30,643 people have been hospitalized because of the disease, or 5 percent of all positive cases, since the pandemic began.
• Daily testing capacity remains at 59,273, though only 2,946 new test results were reported Sunday.

Declining COVID-19 numbers comes as a state health official said Wisconsin might not reach herd immunity from COVID-19 until fall if vaccination rates continue to trend downward. DHS Deputy Secretary Julie Willems Van Dijk said earlier this spring that 70 percent of Wisconsin’s population would need to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity and the state could reach that benchmark by July.

Coronavirus rates vary from county to county. In order to track COVID-19 activity levels, DHS looks at the number of new cases per a county’s population over a 14-day period — and whether there’s an upward or downward trend in new cases. Activity levels range from “very high,” “high,” “medium,” to “low.”

As of Wednesday, DHS data showed the state had one county — Polk — with a “very high” level, while the majority of Wisconsin counties had “high” levels of activity. There were growing case trajectories in one county and shrinking trajectories in 12. Wisconsin’s overall COVID-19 activity level is “high.”

For more about COVID-19, visit Coronavirus in Wisconsin.

___________________________