COVID cases jump in Wisconsin as August ends. And lots of meet-ups are set for September

Not surprisingly, last week featured an unfortunate turn to the upside in Wisconsin's COVID's numbers, with more than 10,000 new cases happening for the first time since January.

Deaths have also continued to be elevated in the last half of August, with last week likely to become the 3rd straight week of 30 or more COVID deaths once all records are cleaned up from recent days.

With deaths typically lagging cases by about 4 weeks, I would sadly expect that to increase for at least the first couple of weeks of September. And now we have the start of school at the college and K-12 levels looming, which means that cases aren't likely to go down any time in the near future (although death rates per case will likely decline some).

The one positive is that the spike in cases along with the certain vulnerable populations being eligible for boosters does seem to have combined to push more Wisconsinites to get vaccinated. The Wisconsin Department of Health Services says the 7-day average of vaccination went over 10,000 shots a day on Saturday, the first time we've reached that level in more than 2 months, when many were finishing up their first round of COVID doses.

I can hope the increased vaccination numbers and mask mandates in places like Dane County can help to put a lid on our recent jump in COVID cases, before our typical cold/flu season kicks in around October. But that is not guaranteed in any way, and with Labor Day, Summerfest, and football season all getting started in the next 2 weeks, there are a lot of mass meeting events happening. So bigtime uncertainty hangs over things as September begins.