Interim Health Officer Reports Over 98% Of Covid Cases Since January Have Been In People Who Are Not Fully Vaccinated; Is Working To Get Appleton Specific Numbers

With coronavirus cases increasing in Appleton (as well as throughout the state) and obvious question is how many of those cases are in fully vaccinated, partially vaccinated, and unvaccinated people.

I reached out to Interim Health Officer Sonja Jensen and asked her if they ask people who have tested positive about that during contact tracing and what the numbers were. Here’s what she had to say:

We do ask those questions, and it is put into the Wisconsin Electronic Disease Surveillance System. We are not able to run those reports at the local level at this time. However, I am asking the state if they can run a report so that we can get some data on the local level. Please keep in mind that the data is not just based on the questions we ask, but also relies on the cooperation of the people that we call to do the follow up. As with any other reportable disease or condition.

I will let you know when I get this data from the state about our community. The data for the state as a whole (from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services), shows that From January 1, 2021 through July 22, 2021, over 98 percent of COVID-19 cases in Wisconsin occurred among people who were not fully vaccinated.”