Friday, October 16, 2020

4039 New COVID Cases in One Day!


On October 15, 2020 Wisconsin reported 4039 new COVID cases in one day. The trend is moving higher in Minnesota as well, but the highest single day number has only been 1516 by comparison. Yahoo News reports that almost all of Wisconsin is classified as a COVID 'hot spot'. Other states with trouble areas include Wisconsin’s neighbors, Minnesota and Illinois, as well as Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina. The graph shows an uptrend starting in early September, which coincides with the start of the fall school season. 

My girlfriend had surgery on her knee on Oct. 12th and has been in the hospital for 5 days trying to recover from that. Before she was allowed to undergo surgery I had to take her to a COVID testing site that was about a 30 minute drive away from our home. They were only taking people who had an appointment. We arrived about 15 minutes ahead of schedule with a line of about 6 or 7 cars ahead of us. After about 5 minutes there were already 6 cars behind us. Everyone was waiting to get up to a big drive through tent that the clinic had setup in the parking lot. It was a little surreal and reminded me of a scene from a movie about a pandemic. Its a good thing we came early because it took 15 minutes to work our way up to the tent. They allowed 2 vehicles to enter the tent at a time. A nurse in a white gown with a mask and clear plastic face shield instructed us to turn off the engine. There were 3 nurses to assist each vehicle that entered the tent. After the customary ID check and appointment verification, a cotton swab was inserted deep into my girlfriend's nose. They told her when the results would be available and wished us good luck. As I drove away I'm thinking, this is one time where you want a negative result to be lucky. The result was negative, but the pain from the operation has not subsided. With more people going to the hospital for COVID treatment, each day spent in the hospital, adds to the chance of getting the virus. I have felt safe visiting her room, but do not enjoy the 1/4 mile walk from the nearest parking lot to get there.

Regarding my last post about being Geo-Blocked by my bank, the block did finally get resolved about a day after I made my blog post. I haven't seen any trouble since then and no explanation was ever provided by the bank.

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