Wisconsin governor Tony Evers said he hopes Donald Trump will consider cancelling two rallies planned for Saturday after the battleground political state, — which has become one of the new coronavirus hotspots in the US — reported its biggest one-day jump in coronavirus cases on Thursday. Mr Trump had been scheduled to hold rallies in the western Wisconsin city of La Crosse and in the northeastern city of Green Bay on Saturday, which have both been identified as “red zones” for community spread of Covid-19 by the White House’s coronavirus task force. Journalists informed Mr Evers at a press conference this afternoon they had received word from officials in La Crosse that Air Force One was not coming to the city on Saturday and that those officials now assumed the president had changed his plans and would not be visiting the area this weekend. Mr Evers, a Democrat, reiterated that “both La Crosse and Green Bay are two of the hottest hotspots in the nation” and that it “makes no sense to be here”. He told reporters he hoped their information about the cancellation of the La Crosse rally was “accurate”. The governor said that if Mr Trump did decide to come and hold rallies, “please insist people wear a mask” and don’t allow people into the rallies if they are not wearing them. “He can control this,” Mr Evers said. “Hopefully he will consider not coming to Green Bay,” the governor added. A White House list of Mr Trump’s upcoming events this afternoon showed the president was scheduled to deliver remarks on Saturday in Janesville, in the south of the state, as well as Green Bay. Wisconsin reported a further 2,887 people tested positive over the past 24 hours, the state’s health department reported this afternoon, up from 2,319 on Wednesday and compared with 2,392 cases on Thursday last week. The latest figures eclipsed the previous peak of 2,817 cases reported on Saturday. Mr Evers urged residents of the Badger State to stay home as much as possible to help combat the “alarming trends of Covid-19 we’re seeing across the state”, but refrained from issuing any official order to do so. He also encouraged people to wear face masks in public settings and adhere to physical distancing guidelines. According to a Financial Times analysis of Covid Tracking Project data as of Wednesday, Wisconsin had averaged 2,414 new cases a day over the past week, the third-highest rate of infections in the US at present behind Texas and California. Adjusted for population, Wisconsin had averaged about 42 cases per 100,000 people over the past week as of Wednesday, a record rate for the state, and currently ranking behind only North Dakota and South Dakota among states. Wisconsin’s death toll rose by 21, down from 27 on Wednesday and compared with six on Thursday last week. Hospitalisations jumped by 109 over the past 24 hours.
Source TF
