GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – With the calendar flipping to September, you might think about where we were one year ago in the pandemic.
September 2020 is about the time when COVID-19 cases, deaths and hospitalizations started to climb to their highest marks.
The seven-day average for new COVID-19 cases in Wisconsin is at 1,699, up about 1,000 cases a day right now compared to the start of September last year.
Cases have been climbing since July, which is a major difference from one year ago when the pandemic’s worst surge was just beginning.
“It’s not waiting for one, we’re in the middle of one right now,” said Dr. Ashok Rai, Prevea Health president and CEO.
FOX 11 asked Dr. Rai if the pandemic could reach levels seen last fall.
“It could. There are definitely different circumstances going on now. Some that are good.”
Dr. Rai says the good news is we have a good percentage of Wisconsinites vaccinated. He says more people are also understanding of the need to mask up.
However, Dr. Rai says the bad is the virus we’re dealing with now, the delta variant, is much more difficult to contain compared to the original strain last fall.
“From the time somebody was exposed to turning positive and being able to do the contact tracing, we had a little bit more time and it was less people. Now the way Delta variant spreads, you really have to be on top of it to mitigate. Almost instantly to mitigate, so spread is just happening at a level much higher than we saw last year.”
The current seven-day average for cases is about a quarter of what it was at the peak of last fall’s surge, which, on Nov. 17, was 6,504 cases per day.
The average number of deaths reported per day is at 6 right now, 10 percent of its highest mark of 57 per day in early December.
Nine hundred thirty-four people are currently being treated for COVID at hospitals statewide, which is about 40 percent lower compared to the peak number of 2,277 last November.
However, Dr. Rai says this week in Brown County, COVID hospitalizations are at or near the peak for 2021.
“We’re just trying to do what we can to support them, but there are certain things that we can’t do that the community has to do such as getting vaccinated, such as wearing masks and just reduce that disease burden on the hospitals, so the staff can get some breathing room.”
