MONROE — Just as kids headed back into the classroom this week, the omicron surge of COVID-19 is hitting Green County hard — health officials here say the county for December set a new record for positive cases in a single month at 828.

“This beat the previous record for a single month in November of 2021, when 732 residents tested positive,” said Bridget Craker, a public county public health educator with Green County.

According to the most recent data available, 5 Green County residents died from the disease in December, she said.

With the first day of school following the holiday break on Monday, the local school district is holding its own, with six Monroe staff out due to positive tests or quarantine; and 50 students. Still, that’s not enough to activate the district’s slate of more restrictive COVID-19 measures, school officials said.

“The total number of student positive cases is…well below the threshold of 50 positive cases that has been established for the Heightened Covid Response Plan,” said Joe Monroe, director of pupil services for the School District of Monroe. “Our current numbers don’t suggest that we are close to activating this plan.”

In December, health officials said 228 kids aged 0 to 18 tested positive for COVID-19 in Green County.

Thus far in the pandemic, 6,026 patients have tested positive in Green County, with 38 deaths attributed to the virus, according to statewide statistics. Green County is not alone in having a “very high” disease level, officials say. 

As the new year dawned, every county in Wisconsin was listed at “very high” or “critically high” levels of COVID-19 community transmission, according to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. In fact, Wisconsin has now surpassed one million confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to DHS reports.

Hospitals are getting hit hard by the surge, including SSM Health Monroe Clinic and experts continue to emphasize the imperative to get vaccinated — not only to prevent the spread of the virus but to lessen its impacts on those who fall ill. Officials at the clinic posted Monday that 44 percent of its total patient population are COVID patients. And a majority of those, 78 percent, are unvaccinated. 

What more, SSM Health said, all COVID patients currently in the Monroe ICU are unvaccinated.

With those kind of numbers in mind, health officials continue to plead with the public to get vaccinated and if already vaccinated, to get the booster shot. In Wisconsin, unvaccinated residents were diagnosed with COVID-19 at a rate 5 times higher than those fully vaccinated, while the number of the unvaccinated hospitalized for COVID-19 is 11 times higher than those who get their shots.

Meanwhile local health officials also say that the winter has raised the specter of another, albeit more familiar, health problem.

“We are also experiencing elevated influenza disease activity,” she said. “Community members who have not gotten their flu shot yet are not too late they should get the flu shot as soon as possible.”