Milwaukee City Hall
MILWAUKEE - The Milwaukee Health Department (MHD) released on Friday, Jan. 22 an update on Phase 4.2 of the public health and safety order "Moving Milwaukee Forward" related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
City health officials announced Jan. 15 that the city would be moving back to 4.2 from Phase 4.3, ramping up restrictions on business capacity and recreational team sports in an effort to curb COVID-19 spread.
The order features five total gating criteria: cases, testing, care, safety (PPE) and tracing. Each gating criteria can be assigned a status of GREEN, YELLOW or RED -- red being the most severe.
On Friday, the health department reported a statistically significant improvement in terms of cases, moving the gating criteria from YELLOW to GREEN.
For testing, which remained in the GREEN, MHD reported an average of 8.2% positive based on an average of 2,775 tests per day.
That is down from 9.7%, based on 2,881 tests per day. It is the eighth consecutive MHD report to show declining positivity, having reached as high as 19.1% in early November.
The remaining three criteria remained in the YELLOW.
"People in Milwaukee are taking steps that reduce the spread of COVID-19. Masking, distancing and avoiding group settings are important; they are reducing the virus’s impact here," Acting Commissioner Marlaina Jackson said. "We are making progress. I continue to encourage anyone with symptoms, and anyone who may have been exposed to COVID-19, to get tested by their healthcare provider or at a community testing location."
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MHD will continue to monitor the situation and determine if additional protective measures are necessary to reduce the spread of COVID-19.
The City of Milwaukee's key indicators for Moving Milwaukee Forward Safely have been updated as they are every Thursday and are available online at milwaukee.gov/coronavirus.
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