COUNTDOWN: THE YEAR’S MAJOR WINONA NEWS
No. 1: COVID plague
Who had heard of COVID-19 when the year started? Nobody. Since then the pandemic reshaped human existence. And in Winona too. The first Winona case was diagnosed March 25. The disease ravaged through nursing homes. At Sauer Health Care 70% percent of residents and 22 of their staff contracted the plague. For a while 104-year-old Sauer resident Vera Mueller was believed to be the oldest person in the nation to survive the virus. Then she died. Drug manufacturers rallied to design a vaccine, but it was a complex undertaking and not to be done instantly. In December Pfizer and Moderns vaccines arrived in Winona to inoculate priority health-care workers. Physician Joseph Kaiya at the Winona hospital took the first Winona injection. It was a celebritus occasion, Most people, however, had to wait while vaccine-makers cranked up production. By year’s end rhe COVD death toll jn Winona County reached 42 and cases totaled more than 3,500 .
Kaiya. Hospitalist takes first Winona shot.