Wisconsin approaches 50,000 cases of COVID-19 as positive rate of new tests drops to 8.5%

MADISON, Wisconsin. With hundreds of new cases of COVID-19 on Monday afternoon, Wisconsin is approaching a total of 50,000 cases for life.

In the past 24 hours, state and county health officials recorded 729 * new cases, representing a sizable drop from 957 on Sunday. To date, there have been 49,556 confirmed cases across the state.

Testing in Wisconsin has declined steadily in recent days, with 6,946 people screened since Sunday afternoon. Of those results, the state Department of Health Services said the positive percentage of new tests decreased slightly from 9.6% to 8.5%.

DHS said 9,873 cases are active, including 880 in Dane County. DHS has also added a new page to its website that contains more information about contact tracking.

There were 26 new hospitalizations on Monday, but Wisconsin still has 21% of its 11,190 available hospital beds. Four more people have died, bringing the state’s death toll to 896.

The University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health has urged the public to be careful about sharing information about COVID-19, as social media contains many myths and research is abundant.

The pandemic has made the upcoming fall season uncertain for high school and college sports. In the case of Edgewood College, all sports competitions until the end of the year have been postponed due to concerns about the coronavirus.

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* News 3 Now uses data from DHS and county dashboards to calculate daily cases and deaths. DHS publishes new numbers daily at 2 pm, and our newsroom continues to update our totals throughout the day with additional cases that individual counties report. Using a combination of state and county data, News 3 Now is dedicated to providing the most complete and up-to-date COVID-19 coverage.