Two more WI Republicans extend GOP's COVID coddling

Polling data show a stark division between Wisconsin Republicans and Democrats on many matters pandemic:

A new statewide poll shows a partisan divide in vaccinations and more negative perceptions toward last year's shutdown

Here's up-to-date-data highlighting another straight line to follow in COVID-slammed Wisconsin - 

Cases	1,391	+45%	709,504
Tests	10,357	–14%	—
Hospitalized	671	+124%	—
Deaths	4	–34%	8,336

- that you can trace from this ideological insanity - 

Congressman Tom Tiffany (R-Minocqua) spoke against masks at the (Monday night Rhinelander School Board) meeting, equating the CDC guideline on masks to its one on eating raw cookie dough.

* To this even more serious and unfolding story:

GOP Senator Railed Against Vax, Caught COVID, Then Hid It From Dem Colleagues

A Republican state senator who has proven to be one of Wisconsin’s most virulent critics of mask and vaccine mandates became sick enough to be hospitalized last week after contracting COVID-19, his office confirmed to The Daily Beast.  

What’s more, a possibly infectious Sen. André Jacque, who testified maskless during a Joint Senate and Assembly Education Committee meeting last Wednesday at the statehouse in Madison, neglected to inform his colleagues about their potential exposure—and they’re not happy. 

I wish State Sen. Jacque - 

- and his family full and speedy recoveries; let's also hope COVID19 and its super-infectious Delta variant was not spread to constituents, other legislators, Capitol staffers, medical workers and random contacts.

No more suffering!

But let's be honest: 

* The seeds of this dangerous resistance to science and common sense were planted last October, for example, by Sen. Jacque's Racine County GOP colleague Sen. Van Wanggaard - 

...three weeks-and-a-day-ago on October 8th, Racine's GOP State Senator and unofficial lead state COVID shoulder shrugger Van Wanggaard said Wisconsin's cases could multiply ten-fold and he still wouldn't support a statewide making order.

* And to an even earlier display by WI GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos - 

Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, a Republican, wore a mask, gloves and other protective gear as he sought to assure voters it was "incredibly safe" to vote in person for Tuesday's election amid the coronavirus pandemic. 

"You are incredibly safe to go out," Vos told The Journal Times in a Facebook livestream. Vos said he was serving as an election inspector and that wearing the personal protective equipment, or PPE, was mandatory. 

Standing in front of cars lined up for curbside voting, Vos said people working at polling locations and those voting in person face "very minimal exposure."

To others: 

* On May 5th, 2020, The Wisconsin Supreme Court - meeting virtually and respecting COVID19 distancing guidelines -  heard arguments in a case brought by GOP Legislative leaders to overturn Democratic Gov. Tony Evers 'Safer-at-Home' order extension. The Justices overturned the Evers order several days later by a 4-3 vote.

During the May 5th argument, Chief Justice Patience Roggensack (the Court is officially non-partisan, but has a 4-3 majority which usually supports conservative and GOP positions) opined that a highly-publicized outbreak of COVID19 in Brown County (the Green Bay-area) meatpacking plants which employed large numbers of migrant workers in close quarters had not hit "regular folks."

The food and commercial workers union called it "shocking and deeply offensive that Roggensack would suggest that workers in meatpacking plants aren't 'regular folks' who deserve protection."

On May 5th, state data showed a total of 1,966 confirmed COVID19 cases and 13 confirmed deaths in Brown County. Using the latest, December 18 data, those Brown County numbers had soared to 25,042 confirmed cases and 155 confirmed deaths, with both categories having jumped by more than by a factor of 10....

* On August 3rd, 2020, GOP Senate Majority Leader [and now-US Rep.] Scott Fitzgerald urged the Senate to overturn a statewide mask-wearing order issued by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. 

“I just said I think it’s a mistake,” Fitzgerald said of the mask order. “I think things are going well right now. People are complying if they want to.” 

On August 3rd, the confirmed COVID19 case number in Wisconsin was 55,328 and the death toll was 949. By December 18, the confirmed case number had soared to 451,676 and the death toll to 4,345....

Which brings us to Wisconsin's senior GOP US Senator and all-in Trump enabler Ron Johnson. 

* In fact, in the very early days of the pandemic on March 18, 2020 - note that Wisconsin did not report deaths until March 20th, state data show - Johnson was sugarcoating COVID19's risks and framing them in business-like/balance-sheet statistics, as The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported:

"...97 to 99 percent will get through this and develop immunities and will be able to move beyond this. But we don’t shut down our economy because tens of thousands of people die on the highways. It’s a risk we accept so we can move about. We don’t shut down our economies because tens of thousands of people die from the common flu,” Johnson said.

Johnson acknowledged that coronavirus has a far higher fatality rate than the seasonal flu, but said, “getting coronavirus is not a death sentence except for maybe no more than 3.4 percent of our population (and) I think probably far less,” he said...

By the way, 3.4 percent of the US population is more than 11 million people.