New WI COVID-19 Jump May Be Undercounted Due To Glitch

By Erik Gunn, The Wisconsin Examiner.

Sept. 21, 2021.

New cases of COVID-19 took another jump over the weekend, according to data posted Monday by the state Department of Health Services (DHS), and public health officials acknowledged that the latest numbers might be undercounting cases.

The lag in reporting some data is due to “a system performance issue” DHS states in a message posted on the department’s COVID-19 data website. Until the problem is resolved, “our reported data may appear artificially low,” the message adds.

A spokeswoman for the department said in an email message Monday afternoon that the department expected the problem to be repaired “in the coming days” — possibly as soon as Tuesday.

Based on the data in hand, however, the average of new COVID-19 cases statewide is already as high as it was in early January 2021. DHS reported Monday that over the last seven days Wisconsin has confirmed, on average, 2,741 new infections a day from the coronavirus.

Among those who were infected is former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, who is seeking the Republican nomination to run against Gov. Tony Evers in 2022. WKOW-TV reported that a spokesman for her campaign said Kleefisch tested positive on Friday after being exposed to someone who was positive the previous Sunday at church. Kleefisch, who was vaccinated for COVID-19 in the spring, was “feeling fine” but canceled upcoming campaign events and had begun notifying close contacts, her spokesman said.

The state’s vaccination rate is slowly increasing, with 53% of all residents now reported as fully vaccinated, according to DHS.

More than 142,000 Wisconsin residents got their first shot in the last month, taking advantage of a $100 reward that the state offered to help boost vaccinations starting Aug. 20. The rewards, in the form of a gift card, are funded with money from Wisconsin’s share of the funds sent to states under the federal American Rescue Plan Act COVID relief legislation.

Eligibility for the reward ended Sunday, but people who qualify can still sign up until Sept. 30, DHS announced.

Recent infections have been increasing especially among children younger than 18. Preliminary reports showed that, in the week of Sept. 5, more than 3,900 confirmed infections were among people in that age group — approximately one out of four of all new infections in the state.

A week ago, a 13-year-old Fort Atkinson middle-school student died after his mother reported he had upper respiratory symptoms and that she had tested positive for the coronavirus. It has not been reported whether either of them were vaccinated. The Jefferson County medical examiner is investigating and hasn’t yet declared whether the death was from COVID-19.

In response to the urgings of some parents, the Fort Atkinson school board instituted a mask mandate for the next month.

In Milwaukee County, the under-18 group accounted for 33% of new cases tallied last week, health officials there reported.

Cases in children have increased as schools around the state resumed in-person instruction, instead of operating remotely as they did a year ago, noted Geoff Swain, a physician and epidemiologist and president-elect of the Wisconsin Public Health Association.

With children representing a larger share of cases now, “it’s a good reminder that in order to prevent children from getting COVID, adults and anyone 12 or older should get vaccinated,” said Ajay Sethi, an epidemiologist and faculty director of the Master of Public Health program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine & Public Health.

Those 12 and older are eligible for the vaccine, but their vaccination rate remains behind that of the state as a whole. And children under the age of 12 aren’t yet eligible.

On Monday, Pfizer and BioNTech announced that a lower-dose COVID-19 vaccine on which they collaborated had been found safe and to produce a “robust” antibody response 5- to 11-year-old children. The announcement has set off a procedure that will require several additional steps before the vaccine receives emergency use authorization in children.

When approval does come, Sethi said, “a lot of parents are going to be excited by that.”

Nearly 40% the state’s hospitals are at capacity, and at more than half of them, intensive care unit beds are full, according to DHS data.

“If you’re in need of an ICU bed, and you live near a hospital where they don’t have an ICU bed for you, you may be denied a bed or have to travel farther for hospital care,” Sethi said.

Dane County is under a mask requirement again. Elsewhere, however, Swain said he sees few people wearing masks, despite the recommendation for vaccinated people to mask up, and many more people gathering in crowds without observing physical distancing. Avoiding crowds and wearing masks are both actions that, along with the vaccine, would offer substantial protection from the spread of the virus, he said.

“There’s a lot of virus circulating,” Swain said. “And we know that the vaccines are tremendous at preventing serious illness, hospitalization and death.” But, he added, the delta variant of the virus continues to spread more easily, causing breakthrough infections in vaccinated people, although usually with much milder outcomes. So other measures to stop the spread need to be reinforced, he said.

“We can be tired of the virus,” said Swain. “But the virus is not tired of us.”

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The Wisconsin Examiner, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site, offers a fresh perspective on state politics and policy through investigative reporting and daily coverage dedicated to the public interest. The Examiner is part of States Newsroom, a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit supported by grants and a coalition of donors and readers.