Beware Wisconsin, Minnesota Neighbors STD Rates are Skyrocketing

I am a big fan of being neighborly, however there is new data that shows you might want to be careful before you invite your Minnesota neighbors over for a Wisconsin barbeque. Newly-released data shows their STD rates are off-the-chart.

I would like to thank the Minnesota Department of Health for their honesty. Their most recent data for STD rates over a full year are now available for 2023 and the results are...concerning.

Here are the numbers for every Minnesota county. The first number indicates the number of Chlamydia cases. The second is for Gonorrhea instances:

Aitkin 20 - 8
Anoka 1,214 - 371
Becker 82 - 18
Beltrami 202 - 48
Benton 119 - 30
Big Stone 9 - 0
Blue Earth 334 - 48
Brown 41 - 3
Carlton 100 - 13
Carver 190 - 34
Cass 74 - 15
Chippewa 35 - 6
Chisago 98 - 27
Clay 244 - 83
Clearwater 10  2
Cook 3 - 1
Cottonwood 15 - 2
Crow Wing 126 - 18
Dakota 1,439 - 412
Dodge 40 - 9
Douglas 72 - 8
Faribault 24 - 3
Fillmore 33 - 1
Freeborn 96 - 17
Goodhue 84 - 19
Grant 11 - 1
Hennepin 7,980 - 3,800
Houston 42 - 3
Hubbard 32 - 5
Isanti 73 - 21
Itasca 82 - 9
Jackson 26 - 0
Kanabec 33 - 4
Kandiyohi 121 - 13
Kittson 7 - 0
Koochiching 24 - 4
Lac qui Parle 6 - 1
Lake 9 - 2
Lake of the Woods 5 - 1
Le Sueur 39 - 6
Lincoln 13 - 1
Lyon 68 - 28
McLeod 83 - 9
Mahnomen 31 - 2
Marshall 18 - 0
Martin 35 - 4
Meeker 34 - 1
Mille Lacs 48 - 11
Morrison 73 - 12
Mower 194 - 10
Murray 12 - 1
Nicollet 91 - 8
Nobles 121 - 13
Norman 13 - 1
Olmsted 515 - 103
Otter Tail 108 - 13
Pennington 31 - 6
Pine 68 - 24
Pipestone 25 - 7
Polk 87 - 14
Pope 12 - 3
Ramsey 3,163 - 1,574
Red Lake 6 - 0
Redwood 20 - 2
Renville 27 - 2
Rice 139 - 32
Rock 16 - 5
Roseau 17 - 2
St. Louis 598 - 178
Scott 399 - 83
Sherburne 287 - 58
Sibley 26 - 5
Stearns 654 - 135
Steele 106 - 21
Stevens 23 - 3
Swift 24 - 3
Todd 38 - 5
Traverse 8 - 0
Wabasha 33 - 3
Wadena 33 - 10
Waseca 42 - 10
Washington 631 - 166
Watonwan 35 - 1
Wilkin 12 - 3
Winona 176 - 24
Wright 275 - 55
Yellow Medicine 7 - 1

I'm not exactly a math genius, but I believe those numbers add up to over 32,000 cases of STD's in Minnesota. Understanding there's a problem is the first step to finding a solution so let's hope this data helps our Minnesota neighbors understand they need to be more careful. In the meantime, I think I'd keep those relationship visits to the west a little more limited perhaps?