BROWN CO., Wis. (NBC 26) -- Local and state health experts say it's difficult to determine whether Wisconsin has seen a peak in coronavirus cases until a peak has been passed.
During a state media briefing call, Dr. Ryan Westergaard, the Chief Medical Officer of the Bureau of Communicable Diseases, said right now, they're seeing a steady flat line of new cases being reported per day.
"If we are at the peak, it's a slow spread out peak which is exactly what we wanted to see, but we won't know for sure until we really see a sustained decline in the number of new cases. The fact that it's a flat curve is actually really encouraging. That's really a sign of success because what infectious disease epidemics tend to do is continue to go up because more people are infected, you expect a multiplying effect so the fact that it's flat means that what we're doing is working," said Dr. Westergaard.
He added that they hope to see fewer cases.
"But I don't think there's enough information in the last week or so to say that we're seeing a downward trend, so we really have to keep following it on a, you know, day to day basis," said Dr. Westergaard.
Dr. Ashok Rai, the President and CEO of Prevea Health, said in terms of a peak, they will look at hospitalizations and death rates and see if those numbers are declining.
"The reason the positive tests create a little bit of noise in there is we're very limited in Wisconsin on how we can test. We're not testing a broad swath of the population so it's hard to know are we running into a peak of cases or not," said Dr. Rai.
He said if everybody was being tested, even those who are asymptomatic, they might have a better idea on where things are at. He also said he wouldn't refer to it as "the" peak but "a" peak.
"We're going to have more and more cases here and there throughout our time as we deal with COVID-19," added Dr. Rai.
However, Dr. Rai said he is optimistic. He said he's seen and heard people trying to do their part to help combat this.
