Five counties in northern Wisconsin still haven’t registered a positive case of COVID-19.
Even so, it’s possible the disease is spreading there.
Locally, Forest, Langlade, and Lincoln counties each have returned zero positive tests for the disease.
But Dr. Ryan Westergaard, a member of Gov. Tony Evers’ COVID response team, said the virus could be spreading without being detected yet.
“It’s pretty common to have discovered after the fact that transmission had been occurring in the communities well before the first cases were detected,” Westergaard said. “There was a recent modeling study from California, and there was also one from Washington state, that said the date that we identified the first case through testing likely occurred after there had already been disease transmission in the community.”
Health Services Sec.-designee Andrea Palm said that’s why Wisconsin is being aggressive about making sure all areas of the state are getting enough testing supplies. That includes rural areas that may have been behind on testing.
