Huge decline in new COVID-19 case counts

We saw a major decline in new COVID-19 case counts for the zip codes (city and rural areas) of Brooten, Belgrade and Elrosa between the Minnesota Department of Health December 16 report and their December 23 report. The decline was approximately by 44 percent. I am actually, honestly stunned by the drop. Remember: we live in the land of "Rocks and Cows" according to Governor Tim Walz, and the COVID-19 surges should rage week to week in our local communities in uncontrollable fashion with our unmasked school children and completely wide-open businesses that operate with few, if any, COVID-19 restrictions.

Last week we had another "surge" of cases (asymptomatic and symptomatic) with a total figure of 43 new between 56312, 56316 and 56325. I honestly had no idea what to expect this week. I was optimistically hoping for something in the 30s or at least low 40s to show that there was no continued increase of new cases.

Here's the new case count:
Belgrade 56312: 14 new cases (27 new last week)
Brooten 56316: 8 new cases (14 new last week)
Elrosa 56325: 2 new cases (2 new last week)
TOTAL new cases between December 16 and December 22: 24 new cases (43 last week and 32 for the December 9 report) 

It's worth noting that the Glenwood 56334 zip code also saw a huge drop, going from 63 new cases in their December 16 report to 16 new cases in today's report. Their new case number for December 9 was 12. The New London 56273 zip code had 13 new cases in today's report and 21 in the December 9 report.

Please do not interpret any of this information in a way that confuses you to the point that you think I am downplaying the severity of COVID-19 and what it can do to those who are susceptible to the negative effects of this pathogen or any other respiratory infection. Do not put words in my mouth. On the ground in our local towns, COVID-19 is spreading in quite similar fashion with quite similar numbers that it did in November and December of 2020. That is almost stunning beyond belief, but that is what the MDH numbers tell us.

Time to gear up for tonight and get another blog post up with sports-related information (forthcoming later this afternoon).