COVID keeps rising all over Wisconsin. Now at 1,000 cases a day

None of the COVID news is good in Wisconsin, as new cases per day have risen every day for the last month, and we hit a bad milestone today.

Here is the today's snapshot of #COVID19 activity in Wisconsin. Remember, #YouStopTheSpread, so get vaccinated, wear a mask, and follow all the other precautions to avoid catching or spreading the virus. https://t.co/ygfKeqtYJS #COVID19_WI pic.twitter.com/oZGuPe5cch

— WIDeptHealthServices (@DHSWI) August 5, 2021

That's the first time in 6 months that our 7-day average has hit 1,000 new cases. And it helps explain why workplace mask requirements and related mitigation measures are coming back in parts of the state.

It's forced me to restart my monitoring of weekly numbers by county, to see who is getting the worst of the pandemic at this time (and who is not). You can see that Milwaukee County continues to have the most widespread breakout of cases, to the point that the Wisconsin Department of Health Services said Milwaukee County was the only one in the state that has now reached "Very High" levels, with more than 3 in 10 new cases coming from there.

I run those figures based on Monday's totals, and most places have been seeing an unnerving climb in the last month, starting with Milwaukee, but certainly not limited to them. And it is often exceedinge levels of the mini-surge in March and April.

The one positive note on COVID in Wisconsin is that the latest breakout is pushing more people to get vaccinated. The Wisconsin DHS reports that last week had the most vaccinations since the 3rd week of June, and we will likely end up near or above 50,000 shots in arms for this week.

That's too late for many, and we sure could have used that increased attentiveness to getting vaxxed a couple of months ago. But let's hope that the sudden jump in cases allows for Wisconsinites to get smarter, and start reversing the growth in cases while Summer is still going on. Or else a lot of people are going to decide they can't afford to make the most of the good weather any more.