A friend who went south for the winter with her husband in their RV emailed me that there is one not-yet-confirmed case of coronavirus in my county. I went to the Wisconsin Department of Health website, which I keep open and pinned, and found that they no longer list the cases by county. Sheesh! I have to hear about this from someone a thousand miles away…

Re: the April 7 election in Wisconsin. From Friday’s New York Times:

Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin on Friday requested that absentee ballots be sent to every one of the state’s 3.3 million registered voters ahead of its April 7 presidential primary, the latest effort to change how elections are conducted this spring as states across the country scramble to protect voters and poll workers amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Mr. Evers, a Democrat, cannot send the ballots on his own; he asked the Republican-controlled Legislature to convene and approve a measure to do so. But the request represents a significant change of course by the governor, who had repeatedly said in recent weeks that the primary and other elections in Wisconsin should go ahead as planned, even as local officials begged for a delay and the number of reported coronavirus cases in the state continued to rise.

It is not clear, however, whether lawmakers will comply, how swiftly they might do so and whether ballots could be mailed to millions of Wisconsin voters quickly enough with less than two weeks before the election. Officials said Friday that they were still preparing for in-person voting at polling places by placing special orders for hand sanitizer and calling for volunteer poll workers.

From the Madison newspaper:

With lawsuits continuing to mount, Gove. Tony Evers on Friday called on the Legislature to send an absentee ballot to every registered voter in the state to minimize in-person voting during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic — a request that drew a quick rebuke from GOP leaders.

On Friday evening the Wisconsin Elections Commission approved Election Day procedures to mitigate the risks, including curbside, drive-through, and outdoor options at polling places. Procedures to limit contact between voters and poll workers also were approved.

The commission also recommended that anyone over the age of 65 and those with underlying health problems not serve as poll workers, a move that would drastically cut the already limited supply of poll workers in the the state. (Emphasis added. I no longer have to feel guilty about not working the polls.)

We talked to Elder Son today. They have had one COVID-19 case, a woman who was on dialysis. Unfortunately, she was coughing during her dialysis treatment, perhaps spreading it to others, and she had held a religious ceremony attended by a number of people. ES summarized the Zuni health center’s situation as the relative calm before the storm. Besides the patient mentioned above, they have tested five people but none were positive. They have enough PPE “for now”. They set up a tent outside ($90,000!) that will hold 20 beds, roughly doubling the size of the hospital. Besides seeing patients, he is on an emergency preparedness committee doing various research things about the virus and how best for the hospital to prepare.

• You have been washing your hands. Are you doing it right? This is the best instructional video on hand washing I have seen.
• Lack of sports has hit broadcasters hard.
• TurboTax offers some personal tax advice about the coronavirus stimulus package.
• How to clean the bundle of germs that is your phone.
• Track the number of cases by county.
• 50 coronavirus jokes.
• How appropriate that they chose Beethoven’s Ode to Joy.

Here are the sites I have pinned and that I check every day:

• Washington Post
• CDC page
• Johns Hopkins page

And because I am an accountant who believes everything is better in a spreadsheet, I have been keeping track of the number of cases.

And the only thing better than a spreadsheet… is a chart.

Yep, that looks kinda familiar…