All corners of Wisconsin continue to feel the wrath of COVID

As Wiscomsin exceeds 100 deaths in one day for the first time, COVID-19 is now seeing cases at record levels throughout the state of Wisconsin.

Perhaps the most startling rise in recent weeks have been in Waukesha County, who now have 182 of the state's 3,100+ deaths. Waukesha County had a backlog of previous cases be "discovered" last week, which brought the week's total of newly accounted cases to near 4,700. But as you can see, it's been an uninterrupted and stunningly steep climb for the last 6 weeks.

Yet Waukesha County's main State Senator feels no need for the state to guarantee the resources that are needed to test for and fight COVID in the new few months.

At the other end of response to the pandemic is incoming state Senate President Chris Kapenga, the Republican from Delafield who will preside over the Senate for the 2021-22 session, and a potential candidate governor in 2022. Asked about COVID-19 proposals from Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Assembly Republicans leaders, Kapenga told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “At this point, I haven’t seen anything that I’m real excited about.”

Kapenga’s comment suggests that, even if Assembly Republicans pass COVID-19 bills in a December lame-duck session, Kapenga will recommend that the Senate not meet this year.

Maybe Sen. Kapenga needs to take a look at Waukesha's many hospitals and notice how many people are in those facilities for COVID. Like all other regions in Wisconsin, the Southeastern portion of the state continues to have an elevated number of people in the hospital with COVID-related illnesses.

All other parts are seeing the same trend. A few were down a bit from the week before, but it's still at levels that we were never close to before October, and (as sick as this sounds) some of that decline may be related to the fact that over 100 deaths were reported today.

Likewise, while the number of new cases have seen a leveling off in some places in recent days, it's still at levels we'd never seen until recently. That's true in communities large and small, and it means we should expect an elevated amount of hospitalizations and deaths to continue for the rest of 2020 in Wisconsin.

And sure, we hear news of drug companies coming up with versions of COVID vaccine. But that's not going to be available for most Wisconsinites for at least 3-4 months, which means that people and policymakers have to be taking steps to bend the curve back down NOW.

The cutbacks and changes in economic activity that need to happen in this COVID Winter are not going to be fun to live through, but living is the key word, and we have to start from that as our goal. And we also need to admit that COVID is still roaring through our communities, and to turn our backs on this real problem is to make sure it bites us even more.