(WSAW) – The Wisconsin Department of Health Services introduced a new tool for Wisconsin residents and public officials to use to make the best decisions for their county to combat COVID-19.
The COVID-19 case indicator panel will help show how severe the spread is in each county. Currently, it looks like a case rate for each county, called burden, which is the total number of cases in the past two weeks per 100,000 people. It also analyzes the trajectory or the percentage of change in the cases during the same period of time.
The lighter the county color on the map, the lower the COVID-19 activity level in that county. Marathon County, for example, has a moderate load and average activity as of June 23. Portage and Forest counties show a moderately high case rate and high activity. All three counties show a flat trend, which means that rates do not go up or down. The state as a whole is on a downward trend with a moderately high case rate and medium activity.
DHS designated secretary Andrea Palm said local health departments have been asking for this type of data to help them make decisions about their mitigation plans.
“Understanding the burden of cases and whether they are going in the right or wrong direction is really important information to help them make those decisions along with the capacity of our bed in this region, how many contact trackers we have, what our testing capacity is “, said.
Those latest data will be added to the dashboard in the future. The dashboard will be updated weekly on Wednesdays at 2 pm
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