GREEN BAY, Wis. (NBC26) -- The state of the Covid-19 virus in Northeast Wisconsin is looking up.
"It’s good news overall on the Covid front in Wisconsin," President and CEO of the Wisconsin Hospital Association Eric Borgerding said.
Back in late September, Northeast Wisconsin’s Covid test daily positivity rate reached nearly 77 percent.
"Hospitalizations... back in November were frightening and spiking at a rate that was truly, truly scary," Borgerding said.
Now things look a lot different for the region. The Wisconsin Department of Health Services reports there are 18 less people hospitalized -- with 82 total -- over the last 7 days in Northeast Wisconsin. And the daily test positivity rate is at 23.6 percent as of Thursday afternoon. There are 20,488 open cases within the state.
"If you look at the state, the Northeast region or even Brown County, the total number of positive cases are most definitely down," Dr. Ashok Rai, President and CEO of Prevea Health, said. "The percent positivity is trending down slightly."
Kim Mueller is a health officer in Fond du Lac County. She says these are the better days she's been for during the pandemic.
"In the early to late Fall, we were dealing with probably 100 to 125 positive cases coming in on a daily basis," Mueller, who works at the Fond du Lac County Health Department, said.
This week, she says the entire region is testing positive at a more heartening rate, including Fond du Lac County.
"We are experiencing probably like 15 to 25 cases per day," Mueller said.
But one local health official advises the community not to let its guard down. The WHA says the state is only receiving around 70,000 vaccine doses a week. And there are nearly 700,000 people within Wisconsin over the age of 65 who are prioritized before Phase 1b begins.
"We do know another peak will be on its way and this one could be much worse, especially with the variants that we see in the United States right now," Rai said.
And the WHA says a statewide outbreak could be detrimental to the state's health care providers, which lack in numbers.
- Though students are excited to get back to class, some say GBAPS' plan to return is 'not acceptable'
"If we do run into another surge or spike approaching even what we saw in October, November and tailing into December… that will stress the system again," Borgerding said.
According to the WHA, the Northeast Wisconsin's daily positivity rate has climbed from 19.7 to 23.6 since Wednesday, but local doctors like Rai say its a welcomed change from last year.
