COVID-19 pandemic in Wisconsin

The global COVID-19 pandemic struck the U.S. state of Wisconsin in early February 2020. Although Wisconsin has to date experienced 144 deaths per 100,000 residents, significantly fewer than the US national average of 196 deaths, COVID-19 was one of the three leading causes of death in Wisconsin in 2020. On August 25, 2021, Wisconsin public health authorities reported 7 day averages of 1,417 new cases and 236 probable cases per day, an increase of greater than 15 fold since late June 2021. This brings the cumulative total of COVID-19 cases in Wisconsin to 651,338. The state's death toll is 7,558, with 30 new deaths over the previous 7 days. As of August 25, 2021, 12.41% of Wisconsin's residents have been positively diagnosed with COVID-19, the 20th highest per-capita case rate among all US states. January 16's 128 COVID-19 deaths set a new single day record for Wisconsin.

A steady upward trend of new COVID-19 cases in late June/early July accelerated in mid-July, with several new single day records reported in late July. In response to July's rising case and death tolls, Governor Tony Evers issued a face mask mandate for all citizens over age 5 while in any building that is not a private home. A lawsuit challenging the mandate was filed by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty on August 25. According to a poll of registered voters conducted by Marquette University, the majority of registered voters support the mandate. Columnist Michael Tomasky argues that insisting on the right to infect someone else with a deadly disease is not a conservative principle and is in fact the opposite of freedom for the victim. "Freedom emphatically does not include the freedom to get someone else sick."

As of August 25, 2021, Wisconsin has administered 6,038,886 COVID-19 vaccine doses. 54.1% of Wisconsin residents have received one dose and 50.9% have completed the vaccine series.