Author: Correspondent

The Trump administration has shelved a document created by the nation’s top disease investigators with step-by-step advice to local authorities on how and when to reopen restaurants and other public places during the still-raging coronavirus outbreak. The 17-page report by a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention team, titled Guidance for Implementing the Opening Up America Again Framework, was researched and written to help faith leaders, business owners, educators and state and local officials as they begin to reopen. It was supposed to be published on May 1, but agency scientists were told the guidance “would never see the...

Members of the Milwaukee Common Council, Alderman José G. Pérez, Alderwoman JoCasta Zamarripa, and Alderwoman Marina Dimitrijevic, released a joint public statement on April 30 about cases of COVID-19 linked to Smithfield Foods in Cudahy. There are no walls that separate the communities of Milwaukee County from one another. Even if there were, the COVID-19 virus wouldn’t pay any attention to them. This is what makes the slow reaction and continued silence from both Patrick Cudahy/Smithfield Foods and the City of Cudahy about the outbreak at the former’s meat processing plant so troubling. The employees at that plant deserved...

IMPACT Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Services (IMPACT) announced on April 27 that it was adding three employees, two full-time and one part-time, to its 211 crisis contact center staff, as the result of a grant from Bader Philanthropies for $100,000. IMPACT 211 Community Resource Specialists connect callers to critical lifesaving services, such as food pantries, income assistance, health and mental health care, substance use disorder treatment; as well as coordinate access to emergency shelter and other housing resources for those facing homelessness in Milwaukee during the COVID-19 pandemic. “The additional staff members will help keep those vulnerable community...

Milwaukee’s Community Health Centers (CHCs) announced on April 27 that all five organizations have increased testing capacity and now offer COVID-19 diagnostic testing and care for their patients, as well as community members without a regular doctor who have COVID symptoms. Known as Federally Qualified Health Centers, the group includes Gerald L. Ignace Indian Health Center, Milwaukee Health Services, Outreach Community Health Centers, Progressive Community Health Centers, and Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers. “It is critical that all people in Milwaukee have easy access to COVID-19 diagnostic testing and health care services in their own community – especially those...

Governor Tony Evers announced on April 28 that the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) and Wisconsin Department of Justice filed a response to the Legislative Republicans’ lawsuit that endangers lives by blocking Safer at Home. The Evers Administration has asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court to toss the lawsuit. Wisconsin’s pandemic laws give DHS broad powers to “close schools and forbid public gatherings” and “issue orders for guarding against the introduction of any communicable disease” and “authorize and implement all emergency measures necessary to control communicable disease.” “Safer at Home is working. It is saving lives,” said Governor Evers....

Governor Tony Evers announced Wisconsin’s “Badger Bounce Back” plan on April 20 which outlines important criteria for Wisconsin to be able to reopen its economy in phases and includes steps to make sure workers and businesses are prepared to reopen as soon as it is safe to do so. In coordination with the announcement, at the direction of the governor, Wisconsin Department of Health Services Secretary-designee Andrea Palm issued Emergency Order #31 establishing the process and outlining the phases of the plan. The emergency order is available here. “As we’ve learned over the past month, in the most difficult...