WI Issues Health Advisory on Omicron Variant Ahead of Holidays: Marshfield had 35 pts DIE/4wk period

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Dec 20, 2021, 4:30 PM (18 hours ago)

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Monday, December 20, 2021
The first hoarfrost of the season in Shell Lake • Reader photo by Noah Marach


State Issues Health Advisory on Omicron Variant Ahead of Holidays

Public health officials on Monday once again sounded the alarm about the growing number of coronavirus cases in the state, issuing a public health advisory about the growing Omicron variant and renewing their call for the unvaccinated to get the shot and wear masks when indoors and surrounded by people one doesn't live with.

Wisconsin’s seven-day average of new daily confirmed COVID-19 cases has grown to 3,294, reported Wisconsin Department of Health Services Secretary-designee Karen Timberlake. That figure is nearly double where the state was two months ago. The state’s total confirmed deaths have reached 9,638. There are currently 19 confirmed Omicron cases in Wisconsin, and the variant last week accounted for 40% of the virus samples sequenced by the state Hygiene Lab.

“We are seeing daily case numbers that we haven’t seen since the end of last year. High rates of COVID-19 transmission are occurring in all Wisconsin counties, and that trajectory is growing,” Timberlake said Monday in a call with reporters, stressing that hospitals are still filling up. “We are at another critical moment in this pandemic … What each of us chooses to do in the next few weeks really matters.”

Dr. William Melms, chief medical officer for Marshfield Clinic Health System, noted that the only reason the number of COVID-19 patients in the network’s nine hospitals hasn’t grown even more is because so many of those patients are dying from the virus. "We just went through a four-week period here at our main hospital in Marshfield where we had 35 patients die of COVID," Melms said.

—Reported by Cara Spoto