Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers said that it could be a number of weeks before he starts to consider easing up social distancing mandates and reopening the state for business.
Wisconsin’s month-long stay-at-home order (
pdf) is set to expire on April 24. But Evers said that he would only start to consider how to relax restrictions once the state can conduct more COVID-19 testing, can track those who are sick, and have more personal protective equipment.
“It’s not going to be like flipping a switch,” Evers
told KSTP-TV about restarting the state’s economy.
“I would fully expect another couple of weeks, a month, before we are in a position to actually say we’re ahead of the curve here, and after that we can start thinking about how we can relax things,” he also told the outlet.
He added that it is “unlikely” that schools will reopen for now. Schools were to remain closed until at least April 24.
Under the stay-at-home order, Wisconsin residents can still leave their homes and visit grocery stores and pharmacies, among a list of other essential businesses in Evers’s order.
State parks were initially open to the public with all entrance fees waived, but Evers
issued an order effective April 9 to close 40 state parks and recreational areas because of “unprecedented crowds, litter, [and] vandalism.”
Wisconsin was the only U.S. state with an election scheduled in April that proceeded as planned. Evers and other Democrats had
pushed to delay the election but the state Supreme Court
blocked the bid.
“Contact tracing is a critical tool in our ability to effectively manage COVID-19 now and moving forward,” said state Department of Health Services (DHS) Secretary-designee Andrea Palm in a
statement on April 9.
Wisconsin, one of the first U.S. states to report a case of the CCP virus,
has logged 3,555 confirmed cases and 170 deaths as of Tuesday.
The Wisconsin DHS released an update on Tuesday telling residents to “keep up the good work” as social distancing measures appeared to be slowing the rate of infections.
“According to the model created by DHS, Wisconsin was projected to have 22,000 infections by April 8, which would have ultimately resulted in somewhere between 440 and 1,500 deaths,” the statement
read. “These numbers were based on projected significant exponential growth in positive cases; however, since the Safer at Home order, there has been a decrease in exponential growth in the number of cases.”
“Wisconsin’s rate of doubling of infections was 3.4 days in early March and, over the past two weeks, the rate of doubling is now approximately 12 days,” the DHS statement continued.
Palm said in the DHS statement that limiting physical contact between people “is our only tool” to slow the spread of the CCP virus. On social media, she issued a video statement encouraging residents to continue their efforts to remain home and seek out
resources from the DHS to help cope with stress.
