by Benjamin Yount
Wisconsin is making a major change in how it tracks the coronavirus.
The Department of Health Services recently announced it is ending its daily tracking of COVID-19 cases and deaths.
“Our COVID website where, for the past three years we’ve shown daily case counts of how many positive laboratory tests for COVID get reported to public health, that daily absolute number of case counts is going to go away at the end of this month,” Dr. Ryan Westergaard, chief medical officer of the Department of Health Services told reporters Thursday.
Wisconsin has tracked COVID cases since the outbreak began in 2020.
But the number of cases has fallen sharply.
As of Tuesday, DHS said there were 179 confirmed cases and 22 probable cases. The weekly average in Wisconsin is just 197 cases.
Westergaard said daily cases are no longer the best way to measure COVID-19 levels in Wisconsin.
“We’ve learned at the national level that using surveillance in emergency departments and hospitals tells the same story,” Westergaard explained. “So we can look at that tip of the iceberg of who’s getting medically-attended COVID-19 infections, and that gives us a good indication overall of what’s happening in the community.”
Westergaard said DHS and Wisconsin’s local public health managers have also found success in wastewater testing.
Westergaard said regardless of how Wisconsin tracks the coronavirus, he said people should continue to protect themselves.
DHS is pushing the latest coronavirus shot alongside vaccinations for other respiratory illnesses like RSV and the flu.
Nationally, COVID-19 cases are up about 20%, but Westergaard said cases continue to be nowhere near where doctors saw in the state’s worst times.
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Benjamin Yount is a contributor to The Center Square.
