Aided and abetted by poor personal choices, willful GOP ignorance and allied judicial misbehavior, the pandemic's infuriatingly yet needless grip on Wisconsin remains on sickening display here:
* Record-setting positive COVID-19 caseload increases are being reported in Wisconsin despite six months of education, experience, sacrifice, sadness and death:
Saturday's reported rise in cases is the second-highest, single-day total to date and the third consecutive day that new cases have surpassed 2,000. A record single-day rise was reported on Friday, with 2,533 new cases confirmed.
* UW-Madison students and the Dane County community at-large are now paying a heavy price for that share of that outbreak, according to health officials' accompanying "data notes."
As we reported last week, three key strategies are in effect to help slow the spread of the virus. On September 4, we issued quarantine notices to over 400 UW fraternity and sorority members due to outbreaks within their chapter houses. On September 7, UW directed undergraduate students to restrict movement for 14 days , and on September 9, UW shifted to two weeks of remote instruction and placed two residence halls under quarantine.
* Republican-hosted events in Wisconsin continue to ignore best pandemic-avoidance practices and the President just invited the unmasked to gather and praise him publicly in Marathon County -
where there were 165 new COVID-19 positive cases last week.
* Data also show positive cases in Wisconsin last week jumping by a noteworthy 1,033 in Brown County where COVID-19 hotspot status had been achieved and noted months earlier in July.
...Brown County is ranked #2 in confirmed Covid-19 cases among Wisconsin's 72 counties.
So let's hope that organized partying on an NFL Gameday Sunday in Brown County does not add to the caseloads:
“All the calls we’ve been getting, we are definitely gearing up and putting on our normal huge tailgate party,” said Ronda Konschake, general manager of Stadium View Bar & Grille, 1963 Holmgren Way.
Several weeks ago I drove through on main street in Wisconsin Dells early on a Friday evening. Only a smattering of masks block after block on the packed sidewalks. I stop at quick marts etc. that have a sign in the door saying mask required but when I go inside I am the only customer out of a dozen to be wearing a mask. A big problem is that the media constantly just gives numbers but does not show someone in the hospital and what it looks like as they die. Most of these people have the attitude that it's just like the flu like they've been misled to believe or they simply doubt that they will "catch" it. Trying to explain anything to most of these people is a futile exercise as they shake their head and say things like "Elon Musk said it's no big deal and he's smarter than you are." Think of how many of those elderly people without a mask at the "rallies" are going to go and now be around their grandchildren and spread it to them and then those children will go to school and give it to the child of another family. We just lost a school teacher but as usual the JS has its' head firmly planted in the sand.
ReplyDeleteI watched a livestream indoor church funeral today for a cousin in his 90’s (a non-COVID death). Good news: congregation was masked and the hymns were sung by a soloist in the chancel while the congregation was directed to “hum along.” Bad news: poor social distancing in the pews, no sanitization of the handheld mic taken into the congregation and passed by the unmasked pastor for shared memories. Too many had their noses hanging out of their masks, including…to my horror…the elderly American Legion member who knelt right next to the elderly widow seated in a wheelchair to present the casket flag.
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