Trump Can’t Distract from his Failed COVID-19 Response in Wisconsin
As Wisconsin is well over 150,000 Wisconsinites who have tested positive for COVID-19, and the state continues to battle skyrocketing cases and economic crisis from Trump’s failed coronavirus response, the President will head to town to distract from the ineffective leadership in the White House. Here’s what he won’t mention:
Cases are spiking across Wisconsin, and the state has passed the grim milestone of over 150,000 infections and has continuously hit record high infection rates.
- Fox 11: “Since the pandemic began, there have been 166,186 confirmed cases, nearly 1.6 million negative tests and 1,574 deaths. DHS considers 127,576 people to have recovered from COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus. Meanwhile, the number of COVID-19 patients in Wisconsin hospitals rose above 1,100 on Friday. Hospitals reported treating 1,101 patients, 58 more than on Thursday and 207 more than a week earlier. Of those, 274 were in intensive care, 10 more than a day earlier and 41 more than a week earlier.”
- Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin’s spiraling coronavirus crisis notched yet another record Friday as the state reported 3,861 new cases. The state’s coronavirus outbreak rapidly has ascended to new heights in recent days. The seven-day average cracked 3,000 Friday, roughly three weeks after it passed 2,000.
The crisis has reached a tipping point in some corners of the state, where doctors say hospitals are nearing capacity, and the state had to create a field hospital to handle the influx of patients.
- Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Gov. Tony Evers will open a 530-bed field hospital at State Fair Park next Wednesday to help hospitals in the Fox Valley and northern Wisconsin cope with a surge of COVID-19 patients that is leaving some facilities there with just a few open beds.”
- CNBC: “A hospital in northeast Wisconsin is considering pausing elective procedures as health officials grapple with rising coronavirus cases and a double-digit positivity rate. Dr. Paul Casey, who heads the emergency department for Bellin Health Systems in Green Bay, Wisconsin, told CNBC’s Shepard Smith on Thursday that hospital beds have been at or near capacity over the past week and that it’s weighing on both staff and operations.”
Even Trump’s White House is saying He Should not be Holding Rallies in Wisconsin.
- Center for Public Integrity: “President Donald Trump plans to hold a rally in Wisconsin Saturday despite his own White House Coronavirus Task Force telling the state this week that residents need to avoid ‘crowds in public and social gatherings in private’ unless they want to cause ‘preventable deaths.’…In the latest report, dated Oct. 11, Wisconsin was in the ‘red zone,’ fourth in the nation for new COVID-19 cases per population and seventh for test positivity. Hospitalizations in the state tripled over the last three weeks, the White House reported, and deaths climbed to 87 in the prior week. The task force report encouraged Wisconsin residents to be vigilant about ‘mask wearing, physical distancing, hand hygiene, avoiding crowds in public and social gatherings in private.’”
The failed COVID-19 response is also hitting Wisconsin’s economy hard, and experts believe it will take the state even longer to recover given the strength of this new wave of cases.
- Green Bay Post Gazette: “The region’s explosion of coronavirus cases doesn’t just threaten more lives but could reverse Wisconsin’s economic recovery as it infects more of the workforce and saps consumer demand.”
- Green Bay Post Gazette: “More than half of workers in the leisure and hospitality sector either permanently or temporarily lost their jobs in March and April, and the sector still has a long way to go to recover those jobs. Some businesses in this industry that have been unable to reopen even see the need for industry-specific aid for this sector.”
New data confirms that Trump and Pence’s failed COVID-19 response tanked the economy, contracting by 32.6% between April and June. This exacerbated existing economic trouble from the manufacturing recession Trump oversaw from his chaotic trade policies with China.
- Wisconsin Public Radio: “Wisconsin’s economy shrunk by an annual rate of 32.6 percent between April and June compared to the first three months of 2020, according to new numbers released Friday from the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis, an agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce. The drop is the highest recorded by the agency since it started tracking quarterly GDP figures for states in 2005. It dwarfs some of the worst losses seen in past quarters, which hover around 8 percent.”
- Politico: “But the White House’s trade wars kicked the sector into another slump in 2019, with Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Pennsylvania facing declines or plateaus in manufacturing employment even back in February — well before Covid-19 forced layoffs at dozens of plants. As of July — the most recent month for which data is available — each state is down between 20,000 and 40,000 workers from pre-pandemic levels.”
NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.
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