The number of new infections being reported daily nationwide remains down from the peak in mid-July, when, at one point, more than 75,000 cases were reported in a single day. Some places, like New York City, have seen drastic and consistent declines in infections since the city was the focus of the pandemic in April. But other areas have struggled to keep cases from returning as students arrived in college towns and some primary and secondary schools opened their doors.
The infections in Wisconsin appear to be driven in part by young people, including college students, testing positive in places like Madison and La Crosse.
In Boulder County, Colo., which had the state’s second highest infection rate over the last week on average, five of the six active outbreaks were tied to fraternity and sorority houses at the University of Colorado Boulder, according to a state database.
About 87 percent of the record number of cases reported on Friday in La Crosse County, along the Mississippi River, were among people 10 to 29 years old, according to The La Crosse Tribune. Those numbers are driven in part by a rash of infections at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, where nearly 250 people have tested positive in the last nine days and where an entire freshman dorm was ordered to shelter in place last week.
Cases have also risen sharply in Utah, which reported more than 1,000 infections on Friday for the first time.
Utah has recently come under fire from schoolteachers, who said this week that the governor and school officials were failing to protect them after several schools remained open despite registering more than 15 positive cases among staff members and students, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.
And Montana reported more than 250 new cases on Saturday, a single-day record. More cases have been announced in the state over the last week than in any other seven-day period. Montana’s total cases per capita, however, remain among the lowest in the country.
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