http://newiprogressive.com/images/stories/S5/covid-19-workers-meatpacking-s5.jpgCity identified as new coronavirus hotspot in New York Times report. Brown County beef-processing companies are major source of 1,000% surge in a week. Trump forces workers back in despite hazard.

MADISON - According to a New York Times report, Green Bay has the second-highest average daily growth rate of coronavirus cases in the United States, identifying the city as a possible new coronavirus hotspot. Yesterday, Trump issued an executive order calling on meat-processing plants to remain open, declaring them critical infrastructure.

As you know, public health officials have connected over half of Brown County's cases to two beef-processing companies and a sausage-maker. Of the county residents who've tested positive so far, 255 are employees of JBS Packerland. The meatpacking plant is temporarily closed.

At a time when Trump remains laser focused on reopening the economy at the expense of Americans’ health and well-being, communities like Green Bay are still struggling to get the virus under control. According to Green Bay Press Gazette, in a week, cases in Brown County increased by 1,000% to surpass 500. “With 618 confirmed cases as of Friday, the state's fourth most-populous county now trails only Milwaukee County in Wisconsin. Brown County has the highest rate of tests coming back positive, at 26%.”

As I’ve mentioned previously, the missing piece of this puzzle — Trump’s original sin and the reason why we haven’t been able to open up our economy sooner — is our country’s lack of widespread testing. According to WPR, “Wisconsin has the capacity to conduct around 11,000 tests per day, but it's currently conducting about 2,000 due to the shortage of testing materials and protective equipment.”

We as a nation are currently testing just over 218,000 people a day. We are nowhere near where we need to be. Even the White House’s goal of testing 2 percent of the population in each state would leave us far short of the tests we would need to reopen. According to a recent report, “We need to deliver 5 million tests per day by early June to deliver a safe social reopening. This number will need to increase over time (ideally by late July) to 20 million a day to fully remobilize the economy. We acknowledge that even this number may not be high enough to protect public health.”

By not acting when he was first alerted of the impending crisis, Trump put us far behind where we should be. Instead of recognizing and correcting this failure, he’s continued to avoid responsibility at every turn.

While Wisconsin is starting to figure out what reopening might look like, it’s important to remember that any path to normalcy will require increased testing. As long as this administration fails to provide increased testing capacity, any discussion of a return to normalcy is purely academic.

If you have further questions, or wish to speak to a Wisconsinite who used to work at JBS Packerland, please let me know.

Best,

Cassidy