A scene from the early months of the pandemic: a drive-thru COVID-19 testing site at Prevea Health in Ashwaubenon in July of 2020. (PHOTO: WTAQ News)
BROWN COUNTY, WI (WTAQ) – As the state’s online dashboard shows a general downward trend for coronavirus in Wisconsin, Northeast Wisconsin is ticking upwards with areas like Brown County remaining listed with high activity and high burden.
“The main thing that we’re looking at here is community spread,” said Brown County Health Department Spokesperson Claire Paprocki. “COVID is spread really easily by close contact with other individuals and we’re just seeing a lot of people gathering and not following guidelines, which is causing COVID to continue to spread…[it is] exponentially multiplying unfortunately due to activities that people are choosing to participate in.”
The department urges everyone to wear a mask when attending gatherings with people that are not in your household. That includes everything from outdoor barbecues to lake sand bar parties to bonfires – and even weddings.
They admit it’s understandably hard for people at times – but say even those who are putting the recommendations out there are being impacted by the guidelines.
“We get it. The guidance of kind of old or tired. We’ve been saying this since late February early March and it’s now almost September,” Paprocki said. “Peoples lives are being uprooted. It stinks to have to cancel your wedding or have to adjust, but if you do you have a gathering with individuals just follow those guidelines so we can try to mitigate and slow the spread.”
Other recommendations include things like physical distancing when possible and getting tested.
“We continue to stand by testing. And testing, even if it’s just a sore throat, even if it’s just a little bit of a fever, even if it’s just any type of mild symptom – we will always continue to suggest testing,” Paprocki told WTAQ News.
Last week, CDC guidelines were switched up and altered. But for now, that won’t have much of an impact on what the local suggestions will be.
“We’ve been pretty steadfast in our recommendations and our guidance that we release to the general public,” Paprocki said. “I’m not quite sure what was happening there with their guidance and then kind of taking it back and then releasing it again. But at least for our little chunk of Wisconsin – and all of northeast Wisconsin as well – we would continue to recommend that individuals get tested.”
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