Milwaukee reports significant rise in coronavirus cases

Gov. Evers, others request more vaccine doses from feds

Gov. Tony Evers is one of eight governors asking the federal government to distribute more doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.

MILWAUKEE - The Milwaukee Health Department (MHD) released on Friday, Jan. 8 an update on Phase 4.3 of the public health and safety order "Moving Milwaukee Forward" related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the first report since the year-end holidays, MHD reported a "statistically significant" rise in the number of COVID-19 cases.

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.

Between Dec. 17 and Jan. 8, cases were downgraded from GREEN to RED.

MHD reported an average of 11.% positive based on an average of 2,341 tests per day. That is down from 11.1%, based on 3,332 tests per day. It is the lowest positivity percentage since mid-October.

While cases were downgraded to RED, and testing remains in RED, the remaining three criteria remained in the YELLOW.

"This latest information reinforces the importance of masks, distancing and avoiding group settings," Acting Health Commissioner Marlaina Jackson said. "As the Milwaukee Health Department starts distributing COVID-19 vaccines, our community still must maintain precautions in order to crush COVID in the months ahead."

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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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