Wisconsin's COVID resurgence different than what we had before

Every afternoon, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services comes out with its report on new COVID-19 cases and deaths in the state. And for the past 2 weeks, we see the trend of new cases going higher and higher.

1/ Today's updates: If #2020 were a @DHSWI update, it would be today. 738 reported new #COVID19 cases in #Wisconsin, from 6,822 tests, but no new deaths. That is a pandemic-high number of new cases. We're on the 11th day in a row of 300+ new cases. pic.twitter.com/12npoiP33A

— Jay Bullock, not a #maskhole (@folkbum) July 4, 2020

We're now at a high point for new weekly cases in our state, nearing 3,800 over the last 7 days. And unlike the last peak in cases at the end of May, it's not connected to an increase in testing.

If there's any good news on the COVID-19 front, is that it's not translated into more COVID-related deaths at this time. In fact, that number is at its lowest weekly level in more than 3 months.

Other than the weird increase in deaths at the end of May, this seems to roughly track with the rate of positive tests from about 4 weeks ago. And likely reflects more testing that catches people infected with COVID earlier in the process. But now we've seen the numbers rise in the 2nd half of June and early July, which means we need to look closely to see what happens to the death totals in late July and early August.

One big difference between now and the last peak of COVID in late May is that Milwaukee County is not driving the increase. In fact, Wisconsin's largest county barely budged higher at the end of June while the rest of the state has spiked in recent weeks, and accounts for less than 30% of new cases compared to the 50% rate it was running in the Spring.
(unlike the state numbers, the county figures will be a bit off for the last week, since I base it on Monday's figures, so we're 2 days short).

The biggest spike in the state by numbers has been in Dane County, with nearly 600 cases in each of the last 2 weeks, and leading to a rollback of capacity on indoor dining and bars last week.

But Dane County is far from alone in seeing these increases. Several mid-size Wisconsin counties have also seen resurgences of COVID-19. This includes Waukesha and Walworth counties, who have already hit record highs in new cases this week (right before a long 4th of July weekend in Lake Geneva, I'll add). College counties such as Winnebago (Oshkosh), La Crosse and Eau Claire have also seen blowups in recent weeks.

One other county I want to point out is Brown County, which had the largest rate of COVID infections in the state due to breakouts at meat processing plants in late April and early May. But things had subsided around Titletown after that...until the last couple of weeks.

You know things are bad when the Packers are now admitting that there will likely be significantly reduced capacity at games for 2020 (if any fans are allowed at all) and that all fans will have to be masked up.

Things certainly feel much worse than they did 3 weeks ago, and it sure seems like there may be a lot more COVID-related disruptions looming for Wisconsin in the Fall, both for schools and in options for going out. And given that the GOP-run Supreme Court and Legislature have both vetoed statewide standards that the Wisconsin Department of Health Services wanted, things look to be a mess for the second half of 2020 unless things change quickly.