SCHOFIELD, WI (WSAU) — Republican Assemblyman Pat Snyder issued a statement on Thursday asking residents to follow CDC guidelines as the state and Marathon County continues to fight a growing number of COVID-19 cases.
“If we treat this virus as something serious then we can cut this down.” said Snyder. That means masking up when you are in public, keeping a safe distance away from others, and practicing good hygiene by washing your hand on a regular basis.
“I think each of us knows what we need to do, and that’s follow the CDC guidelines,” he added.
Snyder says he was inspired to speak up after a conversation with leaders of the state’s hospital association, who have expressed concerns about the ability of the state’s hospitals to handle the growing number of patients with the disease. His wife also works in the medical field in a dialysis lab. He says because the patients she works with are high-risk for the disease, he’s been extra cautious himself.
“The last thing I want to do is somehow expose myself [to something] that would make her have to quarantine or give her something that she could possibly give to one of her patients,” he said.
Snyder’s comments came two days after Governor Evers used a statewide address to issue a new stay-at-home order, and urged residents to limit upcoming family gatherings to just those in their immediate household while using video conferencing technology to include others. He says he agrees with much of what Evers’ said.
“A lot of the time if you are going to visit family, and they say ‘well our kids have the stomach flu,’ you reschedule things and you avoid it so you don’t get it,” he said.
Snyder adds that the same principle can be applied this year to family gatherings. “If you’re going to have people get together, make sure they haven’t been in situations where they could easily be exposed and that they monitor their symptoms if they have any.
On Thursday Wisconsin reported more than 7,500 new cases of the disease in the last 24 hours. The state has passed 7,000 new cases for three consecutive days. Should that trend continue Wisconsin will record its 300,000th case of COVID-19 on Friday
Also on Thursday the New York Times named the Wausau-Weston area as one of the worst in the nation for new COVID-19 infections based on the number of new cases in the last two weeks divided by total population. Green Bay, Beaver Dam, Fond du Lac, and Oshkosh-Neenah also made the list.
