An ongoing spike in coronavirus cases in Wisconsin has led to record-setting numbers of cases, deaths and positivity rates as the state continues to grapple with the pandemic.
Over the last 24 hours, the state reported a total of 34 deaths related to the virus, the highest single-day number of fatalities in Wisconsin since the pandemic began.
The new deaths bring the state’s total number of fatalities to 1,509 since the pandemic began, according to data compiled by NBC 5 Investigates.
The elevated death toll comes as the state experiences its highest number of cases yet. According to Tuesday’s data, a total of 3,279 new coronavirus cases were reported statewide over the last 24 hours, the most that Wisconsin has seen in a single day during the pandemic.
Over the last week, more than 19,000 new cases of the virus have been confirmed statewide, also the most the state has seen in a seven-day span during the pandemic.
While the state has stepped up testing a bit in recent weeks, it doesn’t account for the surge in cases, as the state’s seven-day positivity rate is now all the way up to 19.6%. That number is the highest Wisconsin has reported during the pandemic, and is the third-highest positivity rate in the nation, trailing only Idaho and South Dakota.
Wisconsin is still on Chicago’s travel restriction list as a result of the surge in coronavirus cases, and things continue to get worse in a key metric, as the state is reporting 46.8 new coronavirus cases per 100,000 residents. That number is more than three times the amount needed to qualify for the quarantine requirements. Only North and South Dakota, along with Montana, are currently worse in that category than Wisconsin.
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Even with all of these elevated totals, there is a small bit of good news in the data for the state of Wisconsin. According to NBC 5 Investigates, the state’s R0 number, a reflection of the number of people infected by each resident with coronavirus, stands at 0.99. Any number over 1.0 indicates that the virus is continuing its spread, and while Wisconsin was well over that mark recently, the number has dropped significantly in recent days.
