COVID flares higher in Wisconsin as September wears on

Not much good to say about the state's numbers for the last week regarding COVID-19 are good. The headlines are from UW campuses in Madison and La Crosse going into lockdown with online classes for the next 2 weeks. But if you look at the last 7 days through Saturday, it was bad all around for Wisconsin, with record highs for both cases, and in percentage of tests turning up positive.

The only "good" news is that deaths have not risen with the number of cases, staying at the rate of 40-50 a week that we have seen for the past several weeks.

But we also know that deaths are usually in line with case trends that happened a month prior, so we will see what that looks like in October. So we will see where that goes in the coming weeks, and to see what happens in light of last week's record cold and constant rain, which kept a lot of Wisconsinites inside and possibly more susceptible to picking up the virus.

The news from today wasn't a good sign.

Wisconsin continues to see high daily numbers of new coronavirus cases. 1,582 new cases today -- another daily record. Positive cases represent 20.5% of test results posted today.

Seven-day average of percentage of positive tests is 14.1%.

Ages 10-29 = 38% of positive cases.

— Molly Beck (@MollyBeck) September 13, 2020

Hospitalizations as of Saturday were at 319, an increase of 44 over seven days.

13 deaths were reported this weekend. pic.twitter.com/d4uuFNGGWr

— Molly Beck (@MollyBeck) September 13, 2020

Stay safe and stay smart out there, folks.