Gov. Tony Evers released a new executive order on Tuesday, Nov. 11 regarding the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. 

Executive Order 94 recommends individuals stay at home as much as possible, except when leaving for essentials such as groceries and picking up prescriptions. It also urges businesses to consider the safety of their workers and customers. 

According to NBC15, the Evers Administration cited numbers that show, while it took seven-and-a-half months to get to 100,000 cases in Wisconsin, it only took about one month to reach 200,000 COVID-19 cases. 

The executive order also stated hospital capacity shortages are occurring statewide, something that is also occurring in Eau Claire. 

At UW-Eau Claire, the chancellor’s office sent out an email on Nov. 4 concerning the testing of its staff and student body. 

The new protocol is for students living on campus to continue their COVID-19 antigen testing at McPhee Physical Education Center. However, a new testing location in the Dakota Ballroom in the Davies Center is now available for all staff, faculty and off-campus students. 

Employees at UWEC can also have their children tested if they are above the age of five. Those looking for a COVID-19 test should sign up here.

Only asymptomatic individuals will be admitted for testing. The email reminds people that if someone is exhibiting active COVID-19 symptoms, they should reach out to Student Health Service instead and set up a PCR test.

As of Tuesday, Nov. 10, the cumulative total of positive COVID-19 cases at UWEC has expanded to 479 cases out of the 14,014 given, according to the UWEC COVID-19 dashboard. This is an increase of 90 cases since last week. 

Five new positive cases were found yesterday out of the 492 tests given, leading to a positivity rate of 1.0%. 

Also as of Nov. 10, the information from the Eau Claire City-County Health Department said there are 51 new positive, student-connected cases of COVID-19 and three new staff-connected cases. 

Cumulatively, there have been 647 positive student-connected cases and 15 new staff-connected cases. This is an increase of 69 student-connected cases and five staff-connected cases since last week. 

On the Rice Lake campus, there are five new positive cases of COVID-19, which now rests at 15 cumulative cases. The Marshfield campus remains at zero cases thus far.

Around the rest of Eau Claire county, there have been 5,223 positive cases of COVID-19 out of the 32,829 tests given, according to the Eau Claire County COVID-19 Information Hub.

The number of deaths in Eau Claire County due to COVID-19 now rests at 35 deaths. The death count increased by 10 deaths since last week.

The information hub underwent new updates in the past week, now showing several new sets of data and statistics on the data and metrics page of the hub.

The new data appears in graphs and charts, covering topics like new COVID-19 cases over the months, hospitalizations, new tests by day and cases by age, sex, race and ethnicity.

The age demographic of 18 to 24 is by far the age group with the highest percentage of COVID-19 cases in Eau Claire at 32.8%. The second-highest age group is people between 25 and 34, and they have 15.5% of COVID-19 cases.

The page also has a metrics summary at the bottom to inform people about public health and healthcare capacity and it will be updated on Thursdays going forward.

Spierings can be reached at [email protected].