News Room

When president donald trump invoked the Defense Production Act yesterday, it was telling in two respects. First, it showed that the full force of the federal government will be brought to bear in the manufacturing of vital medical supplies. Second, it underlined what has already become clear: The way our modern supply chain is built is incredibly fragile.

MIDDLETON (WKOW) -- Cities across the country are preparing for the possibility that coronavirus might hit home. 

City leaders in Middleton met Tuesday afternoon, to talk about how they'd respond if the outbreak came to the city. They discussed what it would take to close schools, city offices or public places, if someone got sick.

Governor Tony Evers has declared a public health emergency today in response to new cases of COVID-19 or novel coronavirus in Wisconsin, while various universities and sporting associations have suspended classes and games.

Year after year, Jeff Bezos and his Amazon juggernaut have claimed bigger and bigger chunks of a growing and sweeping collection of industries — electric vehicles, cloud computing, movie making, and gourmet foods. But now Amazon has improbably also become the most central economic player in the country apart from the Fed itself — the omnipresent channel for what seems like all surviving commerce as Covid-19 increasingly brings business to a standstill.

Patients with COVID-19 have inundated hospitals in Italy, forcing doctors to make agonizing decisions about who should receive lifesaving care. Patient surges could soon demand distressing triage decisions in U.S. intensive care units (ICUs), too. As of Thursday, there were more than 13,000 confirmed cases in the U.S., and the nationwide death toll had risen to 175.