What factors might be driving the comparatively lower case and death rates in Dane and St. Croix counties, located hundreds of miles from each other? What stories do these factors tell about COVID-19's impacts?

To better understand the shifting impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Wisconsin over time, a series of data visualizations depicts the number of confirmed cases reported in each county from early March 2020, when the coronavirus started spreading in the state, to the end of November.

Wisconsin's public health agencies each day release a deluge of data about where and how quickly COVID-19 is spreading. The river of information helps communities gauge everything from where to expect new outbreaks to which hospitals are likely to see a flood of patients.

When COVID-19 took root across the United States in early 2020 the illness quickly overshadowed other public health priorities. The effects of this novel coronavirus were identified as grave and far-reaching, and the disease eclipsed a much more familiar threat to human health.