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.