MILWAUKEE- Nearly twenty-one full months since the global pandemic, caused by COVID-19, began, Wisconsin health officials say the state’s topped one-million total cases.
On Monday the DHS says it has confirmed 1,005,150 COVD cases since the pandemic began in March of 2020.
The grim milestone is accompanied by the even more grim statistic of 10,075 lives lost due to the virus. According to the health agency, nearly 30% of all COVID related deaths were recorded among people ages 80-89 while less than 5% of deaths were people under the age of 49.
“It didn’t have to be this way,” UW-Health’s Dr. Jeff Pothof told WISC TV in an interview this week. “What’s made it worse is we all felt that it was an emotional moment when vaccines became available thinking this is it, we made it, all we have to do now is get vaccinated and this goes away.”
Dane County has the highest vaccination rate in all 72 counties at 80%. In Milwaukee County that number drops to 56.7% while the statewide rate is under 60%.
At the turn of the new year, hospitals in Wisconsin continued to report all time, or near all time high rates of patients. According to the Wisconsin Hospital Association, there are more than 17-hundred people hospitalized with COVI-19, 396 of them are in the Intensive Care Unit. As of Monday, January 3rd, 49.6% of hospitals are at peak or overall peak capacity.
