Wisconsin COVID update - good news on testing, cases leveling, but bad news on deaths

Saw this tweet today from a guy who's clearly trying to slide his way into Scott Fitzgerald's current position, and figured I'd update some data.

Today marks 3 weeks since the WI Supreme Court struck down Gov. Evers’ Safer at Home Order and businesses began to reopen. Since that day, the daily % of positive tests around the state has continued to drop. This reality is far from the doomsday predictions Evers was predicting. pic.twitter.com/wt0xJdaE3H

— Sen. Chris Kapenga (@SenatorKapenga) June 4, 2020

And that claim in isolation is correct. On a weekly basis, the rate of positive tests has consistently fallen over the last 6 weeks.

But as I've mentioned before, the drop in a positive rate of tests doesn't necessarily mean fewer Wisconsinites are testing positive for COVID-19. In fact, it had steadily risen since mid-April until this week (which isn't done yet, but we are running below trend).

Instead, what Kapenga is recognizing is the success of the Evers Administration and other health-related agencies in getting tested ramped up in recent weeks.

But here's something Kapenga didn't mention - last week had a 50% rise in deaths form COVID, back to the peak we had in early April when COVID was just breaking out. That first peak of deaths hit 3 weeks after the state first shut down as COVID became a problem in the state, and last week just happened to be 2 weeks after the Supreme Court of Wisconsin struck down Safer at Home restrictions. Ruh roh.

This other tweet from Kapenga also deserves scrunity.

Our hospital system is not being overwhelmed. Waukesha County hospitals today had a total of eleven COVID-19 patients. In addition, over the last week statewide hospitalizations have dropped nearly 13%. pic.twitter.com/scbLtEWTlR

— Sen. Chris Kapenga (@SenatorKapenga) June 4, 2020

He's right in that hospitalizations have gone down in the first week of June. But the previous week had the highest number of COVID 19 hospitalizations since April, as shown by the dark blue line on the top.

So there was clearly a jump in late May of people developing severe symptoms of COVID-19 (with quite a few dying), but for now, that wave is subsiding.

It's not like Waukesha County is immune to the trend of more cases. It's seems intriguing to note that Kapenga's home county has had more cases than us hippies in Dane County for each of the last 5 weeks, despite Waukesha County having 140,000 fewer people. And it had its highest one-week jump in cases since the pandemic broke out in March.

Sure, some of that is likely due to the jump in testing that finds more people with COVID-19 these days, but if Chris Kapenga is trying to spin that COVID-19 isn't a concern any more and that there wasn't an effect from ending Safer at Home, the numbers and especially the increase in deaths last week say otherwise. And no, the disease isn't contained to a few large cities, and it is not dissipating among his (mostly white) constituents.

The next two weeks will tell a lot, both in the aftermath of large-scale protests of people in the streets (albeit in masks) and because we will see if this week's trend of lower cases and deaths is a sign of the pandemic clearing for the Summer, or if the multi-week highs of late May were the sign that the onslaught will resume.