Wastewater Wednesday - 8/27/25
Not gonna sugarcoat it. Things are bleak and getting bleaker.
The national COVID data has basically gone dark. The Walgreens Respiratory Index is down. The CDC's COVID wastewater data hasn't been updated since August 9.
RFK Jr. has banned mRNA research (which had been showing great promise for, among other things, curing cancer). And now there's talk that he wants to ban COVID vaccines altogether.
And then there's measles which is still kicking around in multiple states, and rumors that H5N1 bird flu has finally made the jump to human to human transmission somewhere in the plains states.
All that, plus school is starting.
School, which is a major driver of disease (not just COVID) transmission.
School, where we cram kids into (often) poorly-ventilated classrooms for 8 hours a day, where we emphasize attendance over wellness, and where at least one school district in Tennessee will no longer even accept a doctor's note as an excuse for an absence.
Yeah, I'm sure things will be fine. /s
Wisconsin Wastewater Data
While our national data has gone dark, the awesome folk at Wisconsin DHS are still plugging away, giving us regular wastewater updates. The latest update posted yesterday and it's not pretty:
Things are heating up just in time for school to start. Students have just moved in to their dorms. The first Badger game is tomorrow. Some K12 schools have already started, and the rest will be in session next week.
But let's zoom in to where things are getting worse already - namely, the seven sites with a significant increase: Black River Falls, Marinette, Mauston, Milwaukee (Jones Island), Milwaukee (South Shore), Spencer, and Viroqua.
The graphs for Black River Falls, Marinette, and Viroqua have all gone dramatically vertical (because that's what exponential growth does).
But my biggest concern is what's going on in Milwaukee (Jones Island), where the increase, while currently less steep, is sustained and accelerating:
The next few weeks are probably going to be rough.
I know I sound like a broken record, but if you have given up on masking, now is a VERY good time to start again to protect yourself before you get sick. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. But the more you mask up, the more others around you will feel comfortable masking back up as well, and the safer all of us will be, including those who can't mask, like infants.
It's especially important to do whatever you can to protect both your own health and the health of those around you given what our government is up to.
We keep us safe.
Mask up.