The Fond du Lac County executive says he is proud of the job the county has done to protect the health of county residents during the coronavirus pandemic. Al Buechel was responding to some members of a Facebook group who showed up at a recent County Board of Health committee meeting, critical of the Public Health Department and skeptical of the COVID vaccine and pandemic in general. Some members of the group also sat in on this week’s county board meeting. “When you’re affecting the lives of this many people you have to make the decisions that you feel are the best for the citizens that you are sworn to protect,” Buechel told WFDL news. It’s easy to say that that’s wrong, that the science doesn’t support it, when clearly it does. The point is that’s an awesome responsibility.” A member of the group recently posted on Facebook that “We all know flu cases were labeled COVID-19 to boost the fake numbers.” “They feel really strongly about this, that this has been a hoax,” Buechel said. “They say we are inflating the number .(COVID deaths) I know in talking to the county’s medical examiner he inflated nothing. Those numbers were real.” Fond du Lac County Public Health Officer Kim Mueller says it may be that some people don’t understand the focus of her department is preventing disease and protecting the health of all people. Since the beginning of the pandemic there have been more than 12,500 positive COVID-19 cases and 119 COVID-19 deaths in Fond du Lac County.
