Here & Now

Gov. Tony Evers Outlines Criteria for Reopening the State

Frederica Freyberg:

The new “safer at home” order runs from April 24 until May 26 and does allow for curbside pickup at libraries and golf courses can reopen with new restrictions. For the first time, Governor Tony Evers this week outlined the criteria that must be met before schools and businesses can reopen and showed his frustration with Republicans who look to settle the matter in court. Governor Evers has agreed to join us each week, and earlier I spoke with the governor. Governor, thanks very much for being with us.

Tony Evers:

Thank you much. Good to be back.

Frederica Freyberg:

Well, so protests and lawsuits over the extension of the “safer at home” order. In reporting on the Republican suit brought to the Supreme Court, I described you as being livid. What makes you so angry about them seeking the remedy to blocking this order in court?

Tony Evers:

Well, first of all, what frustrates me is that we made a decision to follow the White House and the CDC’s kind of process to determine when we’re ready to open up parts of our economy. So we’re following a Donald Trump model here. And so if that’s what they’re annoyed about, then they need to go talk to Donald Trump. But the bottom line is, it’s a continued attack on the executive branch. They started it with the lame duck session, and they continue to this date. And it would be just a minor irritant if — this will delay things, and this will delay things in a way that I believe actually costs lives and also increase the possibility of us, you know, even furthering down the road our opportunity as a state to open up economically. It’s not necessary. It’s a political power grab, plain and simple. And, frankly, we got a lot of stuff on our plate now. We don’t need political power grab to be inserted into the middle of it.

Frederica Freyberg:

You said that you believe the Supreme Court will listen to science to keep people safe, but what if they agree with the Republican Legislature? What then?

Tony Evers:

Well, I guess it goes through some — it’s their ball game then. They have — they will have the ability to do what they want to do. And it will all be done through administrative rule-making and, frankly, it’s been my observation in the past that that is not something that happens in a day. It happens in weeks and sometimes months, you know, in some cases half a year. So to do this in that fashion just — it doesn’t speed up anything and it creates havoc and I just — I just think the — we are on — we are in a good place. We need to move forward in this state, not battle this out in the Supreme Court.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now, Wisconsin is not alone, but our economy is cratering with lost business and lost jobs. State coffers could be gutted. What is your message to the beleaguered people of Wisconsin as new COVID-19 cases and deaths continue?

Tony Evers:

Well, we have a plan. The plan is quite simple. It has the three criteria by which we’re going to be judging whether we are making some progress. We have to do testing. We have to do the contact tracing. All those things have to be in place. The people of Wisconsin have sacrificed a bunch, and I appreciate that. We have to continue to take care of this virus. But at the same time when we have opportunities to open the door a little bit in certain areas to allow businesses to expand and bring back workers, we’re going to do that. If that happens before May 26, let it happen. We are willing to do that. But we have to focus on the virus. We have to get to a point where we’re boxing in the virus, not boxing in people.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now, this is your Badger Bounce Back Plan to slowly reopening, and it includes seeing a 14-day decline in positive cases, being able to test 85,000 people a week and deploying 1,000 contact tracers. How far are we or how close are we to meeting those metrics?

Tony Evers:

Well, the metrics around the number of tests, we’re getting close. I think today we had over 10,000 tests. So it’s seven days a week, we’re at 70,000. We know we can increase that. We’re asking our physicians and other care providers to test people that are showing symptoms. I think the lab capacity is overall across the state in pretty good shape. Personal equipment is not so good, although we’re going to receive a large shipment from the federal government. So those pieces, I think, we’re in a pretty good place. But now we’ve had an outbreak in Green Bay with a meat-packing plant. I don’t know the specifics, but I guess it has to do with not having the appropriate things in place there. That will set back that part of the state, simple as that.

Frederica Freyberg:

What is your response and reaction to that, if in fact those plants have not been practicing safety measures?

Tony Evers:

Well, shame on them. And shame on their insurers for insuring them. We have a pandemic. And one of the core pieces of that pandemic is to have physical distance between people. And if — I don’t know this, but — and if that physical distances has caused this, then that’s a problem and we’ll have to look at it. Clearly we’re working with the local health officials to see what we should be doing next. We’re spending most of our time, frankly, testing and tracing the folks that have been infected so that we can keep things to a minimum.

Frederica Freyberg:

Aside from that cluster of positive cases in that area, what about the argument that not all places are hit as hard as cities and that those localities should be able to reopen, even now?

Tony Evers:

Yeah. And we look at that regularly. And there’s a swath of counties in the northern part of our state that have very small numbers. Actually, a couple have zero. But that doesn’t mean there’s no virus in that county. Clearly, only — it takes a test to make that happen and takes symptoms to make a test happen, and many people are asymptomatic, so they’re never going to be tested. There’s virus all across the state. But we are willing to look at — as we move forward, if there’s things we can do individually or regionally, we’ll take a look at that.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Governor Tony Evers, thanks very much. Thanks for joining us.

Tony Evers:

Thanks, Frederica. Take care.