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Morning Update: Friday, Sept. 3

Good morning, Madison!

The Covid-19 stats are back! Scroll to the bottom to see what I'm talking about.

Hope you have a good weekend!

- Sam

🏡 Wondering how you can help Afghan refugees?

💉 The UW says that 9 out of 10 people on its campus are vaccinated.

  • According to the university...
  • 88% of students are fully vaccinated.
  • 99% of faculty are fully vaccinated.
  • 92% of all employees are fully vaccinated.
  • These percentages are way, way higher than the general population. The latest data shows that 51.6% of the state and 69.4% of Dane County are fully vaccinated.
  • The university does not currently have a vaccine mandate for students or staff.

🧾 State tax revenue was higher than expected this fiscal year. The State Journal went deep on this, but here are some highlights:

  • We're not talking about calendar years here. We're talking fiscal years, and the most recent one ended June 30. It's kinda like how school years don't match up with calendar years.
  • These numbers are still technically preliminary estimates, but since the fiscal year is over, they're probably pretty accurate.
  • Tax collection revenue, overall, was up 11.6% over the previous year.
  • A lot of this is going to the State's "rainy day fund," which is estimated to grow to $1.73 billion.

🍺 Those same tax figures show we drank more than we did the previous fiscal year.

  • FY 2019-2020 only had a few pandemic months. FY 2020-2021? All pandemic, all year long.
  • Tax revenue from the sale of beer, wine and liquor was up a combined 16.5% (fiscal) year-over-(fiscal) year.

🖥️ Madison schools will be accepting more 4K-5 students than previously expected for virtual school.

  • The district was planning to accept 150 families for the virtual option but ended up accepting all 750 families that applied, the Cap Times reports.
  • As of this summer, there wasn't going to be a virtual option for these grades. But with the emergence of the Delta variant, things have changed.

📉 Your lunchtime read: Madison's population is increasing, according to the latest Census data. That's not the case in many rural areas of Wisconsin.

  • Many rural counties have seen their population decline in recent years.
  • From the Journal Sentinel: "The losses ranged from barely noticeable to serious enough, that if continued, they could undermine the labor force and tax base necessary for essential services."

Covid-19

📈 The stats are back!

  • We aren't public health experts so we reached out to a few experts to get their thoughts on this section.
  • Out: partial vaccination stats. With the current rise in cases attributed to the Delta variant, experts want to emphasize the importance of being fully vaccinated.
  • In: Confirmed cases per 100,000 residents over the past 7 days.
  • The CDC is using this measurement to classify counties' current virus transmission levels.
  • This measurement also makes it easy to see how Dane County compares to Wisconsin as a whole, which is something that several folks wrote to us to request.
  • There are tons of different graphs you could look at! A lot of them would look pretty similar to this one. If you're a real data nerd, you might enjoy the data dashboards from the CDC, Wisconsin Department of Health, or the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Wisconsin Vaccination Rate: 51.6%

Dane County Vaccination Rate: 69.4%

🗓️ What the heck are we going to do this weekend? Such a good question, bestie. Let's consult the events calendar...

Friday, September 3

Saturday, September 4

Sunday, September 5

🎃 It's that time of year already... Working Draft Beer is pouring an Oktoberfest-themed beer. 👇

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