COVID-19 Update

Forest County Health Department Urges Residents to Get Vaccinated.

In Forest County, the positive COVID-19 cases are rapidly rising as well as the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations.

The Forest County Health Department is urging residents to please get vaccinated, stay home when sick, do not attend gatherings, wash your hands, and wear a mask when you do have to be out in public, to help stop the spread of this disease.
Public Health staff at the county and both Tribes are working hard to provide COVID-19 vaccinations, follow up with positive cases and offer testing.

If you have tested positive, we are requesting that you isolate at home away from all people. If you have been told you are a close contact of a positive case, please monitor yourself for symptoms, stay away from others and get tested.

COVID-19 vaccines are effective at helping protect against severe disease and death from variants of the virus that causes COVID-19 currently circulating, including the Delta variant.

Free COVID-19 Vaccine and testing is available locally:

Wolf River Pharmacy in Crandon – Call 715-478-3369 to make an appointment. Moderna Vaccine is available.

Forest County Potawatomi Health and Wellness Clinic has the FDA- approved Pfizer vaccine, as well as the Moderna and Johnson and Johnson vaccines available. Monday through Friday 8:00 am to 5:00 pm. Call 715-478-4300 to schedule an appointment.

Sokaogon Chippewa Clinic has the FDA-approved Pfizer vaccine as well as Moderna. Call 715-478-5180 to make an appointment.

Aspirus (Ascension) in Crandon is testing for symptomatic clients – call 715-478-6300. For asymptomatic clients that need to be tested, call 1-844-568-0701.

Newcap in Crandon offers COVID-19 testing and Moderna vaccine Monday through Thursday 9:00 am to 4:00 pm and Fridays 9:00 am to 1:00 pm – call 715-478-3871 for an appointment.

The Forest County Health Department continues to post case counts on our Facebook page and website.

LATEST UPDATE:

Information current as of Wednesday, September 15th –
Since Tuesday, Forest County Health Officials have confirmed 12 additional persons have been diagnosed with novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) for a total of 1,164 cases in Forest County.

There are currently 60 active cases in isolation, 4 hospitalized individuals, and 1,075 who are out of isolation/recovered.

As of September 10th, the department showed 24 confirmed deaths and 4 probable deaths. On Monday, the department reported one new death associated with COVID-19.

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services posted on Facebook yesterday, “Today’s #COVID19_WI update shows two counties (Forest and Buffalo) at Critically High activity levels. It’s the first time since January we’ve seen rates of more than 1,000 cases per 100,000 residents.”

On Monday, WXPR Public Radio reported that a child from Oneida County was hospitalized last week. This is the second time since the start of the pandemic someone younger than 18 from Oneida County has been hospitalized due to the virus.

While children don’t seem to get severe cases as often, they’re by no means immune. Oneida County Health Department Director Linda Conlon says health officials are definitely seeing more cases of COVID-19 in children with this latest wave. The under 18 age group has had the most COVID-19 cases out of any age group in Wisconsin in the last several, according to DHS data.

“It isn’t necessarily because Delta is more severe. It’s because we are transmitting Delta in the community and our kids aren’t protected. We don’t have that answer of if it’s more severe or not,” said Conlon.