COVID-19 hospitalizations leveling after weeks of declines

MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) - As the dramatic drop in COVID-19 cases gives way to a slight and steady decline, the number of people admitted to Wisconsin hospitals also appears to be leveling off after its own fall.

After a month-long stretch of Wisconsin hospitals reporting shrinking hospitalizations, one of the seven regions the Dept. of Health Services divides the state into showed no significant change. The latest weekly report now shows only three portions, the sections bordering Lake Michigan and the north-central part of the state, still seeing notable declines.

The rest of Wisconsin, including all of southern Wisconsin outside of the Milwaukee metro area, did not see a significant change. Taken as a whole, though, DHS still counts Wisconsin as having shrinking hospitalizations and declining numbers of patients in intensive care units. According to the agency’s dashboard there were an average of 241 COVID-19 patients in Wisconsin hospitals each day over the past week, just under fifty of whom had been admitted into ICUs.

COVID-19 Hospitalizations and Hospital Capacity, on March 24, 2022.(Dept. of Health Services)

The average for new confirmed cases statewide did drop again Thursday, DHS reported. Its update showed 383 more positive tests reported in the past day, which allowed the average over the past week to fall to 315 per day. In all, state officials have recorded 1,390,626 cases since the pandemic began.

The latest report on COVID-19-related deaths in the state also showed the average rate slipped to 8 per day over the past week. That put the seven-day rolling-average at the lower end of the range where it has remained for all of March, having never exceeded 10 per day and only dropping below the current average once in that time. DHS now reports 12,658 people in Wisconsin have died from COVID-19 or complications related to the virus.