Elliot Hughes, Talis Shelbourne and Natalie Brophy, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
On the first weekend without any statewide stay-at-home orders, Wisconsin was open for business, and at least along the southern border, people from Illinois poured in.
Hundreds of day-trippers, including many in cars with license plates from the Land of Lincoln, flocked to the tourist haven of Lake Geneva on Saturday.
They shopped, ate lunch, strolled the banks of the lake, went on boat tours and set up picnics.
And outside, at least, there wasn't a lot of social distancing.
Illinois is still locked down to fight the novel coronavirus while Wisconsin is under a patchwork of local regulations after Wednesday's decision by the state Supreme Court to throw out Gov. Tony Evers' safer-at-home order.
“Illinois is closed and we’ve been wanting to get out,” said Castano Penn, a Chicagoan who works at a senior living center and was not wearing a mask Saturday as he strolled the streets of Lake Geneva.
"I know it’s probably bad," he said. "I’m just kind of done with it all.”
But the coronavirus is certainly not done burning its way through the global population.
Wisconsin set a single-day record of cases Saturday as 502 people tested positive for the coronavirus.
The cases reported by the Department of Health Services came from a round of 6,051 COVID-19 tests that were processed. The percentage of new tests that were positive for the virus was 8.3% — slightly higher than the average of around 6% from the previous six days.
This latest round of tests brings Wisconsin's total number of confirmed cases to 12,187, according to the DHS. More than 134,200 people have tested negative for the coronavirus as of Saturday and 453 people have died, eight more than reported Friday.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, 2,018 people have been hospitalized, which is around 17% of all positive cases. As of Saturday morning, 361 patients were hospitalized with COVID-19, according to the Wisconsin Hospital Association. Of those hospitalized with COVID-19, 182 are in the intensive care unit.
White Niggers from Illinois.
ReplyDeleteAt least to Lake Geneva the daytrippers bring money - what do they bring to Ratcine? Except, drugs, loud rap, and criminal activity?
ReplyDelete