Here & Now

Rising Stakes, New Rules: Gov. Evers on COVID-19 Response

Frederica Freyberg:

Tonight, the latest COVID-19 numbers. 206 cases have been confirmed in the state with three deaths. There is community spread in the counties of Milwaukee, Dane, Brown, Kenosha, and Columbia. Many of you had questions you wanted to ask our guests tonight and we incorporate them. In a reduced studio footprint to limit staff and also not bring guests into our space, we are joined now, via skype, by Governor Tony Evers. Governor, we want to thank you very much for joining us.

Tony Evers:

Thank you, Frederica.

Frederica Freyberg:

First, what message would you like to give the people of Wisconsin tonight?

Tony Evers:

Great question. First of all, as I’m sure most of your viewers know, we’ve lost three Wisconsinites to the COVID-19 virus. And our thoughts and prayers are obviously with that family, and their friends and relatives. It’s a tragedy. It’s a public health tragedy, a tragedy nonetheless. And the other thing I want people to know is that our healthcare workers, whether it’s emergency responders, people that work in hospitals and the clinics and so on really need our support now. They are working 24/7, and under really difficult circumstances. And what we can do as Wisconsinites is obviously pull together. And I feel confident about the resilience of Wisconsinites, but we’re encouraging people to stay at home. The way we will conquer this virus is to make sure that we are not infecting each other. And one of the ways we can do that is obviously around social distancing, but there’s enough requirements around that we’ve done through executive order. Frankly there’s not much more people can do than stay at home. So stay at home. Be safe, keep that distance, and we can beat this, but we have to have — this is something the people of Wisconsin can solve. Obviously we’re trying to support our healthcare workers as much as possible, but if we do the things that we know we have to do: hygiene, making sure that we don’t interact with people that are sick, that if we’re sick, we connect with our doctors, all those things are common sense things that if we do this, we can solve this problem.

Frederica Freyberg:

Other places as you know have gone to more kind of extreme shelter in place orders where everyone stays inside, although you say that mostly we’re staying inside, but what would be the tipping point for you to declare that kind of social distancing?

Tony Evers:

It would be difficult for me to get to that point. I think we have enough constraints on people’s lives already that I think — I believe what we have in place will work. I understand other places have different needs, but Wisconsinites are people that care about each other. We’re good neighbors. We understand that we have an obligation to each other. So it would be — I have great — I would have great problems doing the shelter in place. Obviously if we’re directed to do it, I’ll follow those directions, but for me, I think we have the adequate pieces in place.

Frederica Freyberg:

You added some kind of new clarifying rules around closures, and released them today. What are those?

Tony Evers:

Primarily they’re around beauty salons, barbers, tattoo — places where you get tattoos. We believe that those cannot remain open. And so we’ve banned — those places will be closing as of this afternoon.

Frederica Freyberg:

How concerned are you that people still on the job can maintain services for the rest of us? Healthcare workers, of course, but grocery clerks or pharmacists?

Tony Evers:

Yeah, it’s all going to be difficult. Again, we’ve looked at every possible supply chain that exists. We’re leaving it open for manufacturers to continue doing their good work and we’re being as supportive as we can to make sure those supply chains be in place. But you know, we’re operating under 3.5 or 3% unemployment rate, so there’s not many spare people around. And so we always are concerned about that. But I think the pieces are in place where our food chain is great in the state of Wisconsin. We know that for a fact. So we’re continually interacting with all those business– food supply chains to make sure that we can live.

Frederica Freyberg:

You said today that the state needs to take legislative action and that you are working with legislative leaders to develop a package. What do you want to see in that, and when might it come?

Tony Evers:

Well, I can address the second one most specifically. The meetings we’ve had thus far just discussing general places where we have agreement. This is clearly, clearly, I think everybody that we’ve been talking to understand that this is a bipartisan time, actually non-partisan time. So I’m not at liberty to talk about the issues that we’re looking at, but there are really important issues to make sure that the state has the flexibility to react to this crisis. I believe at the end of the day, we’ll find some common ground and we’ll be bringing legislation forward for the legislature to consider.

Frederica Freyberg:

What’s being done now for hourly workers who under current orders have lost their jobs and businesses that have shut down?

Tony Evers:

Yeah, exactly. Our Department of Workforce Development has ramped up their unemployment insurance issue. We’ve had obviously a big spike in that. Through executive orders, we’ve relieved some of the constraints we have around that. So we have now that 99% of the people can actually apply for unemployment compensation insurance online. We’ve beefed up the folks that are answering those questions, so I think that’s in a good place. On the business side, we’ve tasked our Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation to really focus on small businesses, focus on finding resources to make sure that our small businesses, our main street merchants are not harmed irreparably. So that’s Missy Hughes, undersecretary in that area, that is her task and she’s already reached out to those communities. I personally have met with business owners and others across the state to find out what those needs are, but clearly it’s financial, you know, our restaurants and bars, and if you think about it, we have a strong manufacturing climate in the state of Wisconsin, but most of our employees in the state are — work in the service industry, which is really struggling now. So we’re going to be working on that.

Frederica Freyberg:

We got word that a prison employee tested positive for COVID-19 at Waupun. Several viewers wanted to know what actions the state is taking to prevent the spread inside these kind of already overcrowded institutions.

Tony Evers:

Yeah, absolutely. And we’ve had things in place now for some weeks in preparation of this, to make sure that the people that were responsible for those institutions are safe and things are working well. And we’re continuing to provide food and free phone calls and things like that, but yes, there was an individual in one of our correctional institutions who tested positive. We’re now in the process of working through that to see which employees were exposed to that and getting them the care they need and to find out how close it is to the prison population. We don’t — I don’t have that information at this time, but we feel it’s a good place where it’s contained.

Frederica Freyberg:

A viewer asked this question as well: if hospitals get overwhelmed, have you considered retrofitting large spaces like county expo centers as kind of field hospitals?

Tony Evers:

We’re running through every possible scenario. Lots of people working on it. Lots of good people from our universities and others that are helping us out in each type of scenario. Absolutely, dormitories might be used for quarantines, and we have the ability through various mechanisms to actually create more beds if we need to. So do we feel that we’re absolutely on top of this? No, but we’re in a position now where we feel comfortable that if we have this surge, if it is more people being hospitalized and more people needing quarantines, that we’ll be in a good place. In addition to that, we’re also concerned about our homeless populations across the state because they’re struggling to begin with. And so I’ve been working with mayors to make sure that they understand and obviously they do or they wouldn’t be [unintelligible] that we’re looking for places for homeless people, especially those that are struggling with healthcare issues.

Frederica Freyberg:

As you know, there are great concerns about Wisconsin’s upcoming election on April 7. Election clerks that we have talked to are already overwhelmed with these absentee ballots and worry about election day itself. What if they get sick or their staff? What should happen? Would you favor delaying this election?

Tony Evers:

No, I wouldn’t. And first of all, I’m not in the position to delay it. That’s something that would have to have the leg– happen legislatively. But the fact of the matter is, this primary election is primarily a general election. General election, the only primary is the presidential one. The rest are local and county races that need to be decided or positions that are making important decisions around what we’re talking about, there won’t be people in them. So, A) it makes no sense to cancel it. I understand the difficulty of it but democracy has to go on. And then the second piece is, frankly, if we moved it a month, if we moved it two months, there is absolutely no guarantee that it wouldn’t be as complex as it is now. So our message is quite simple. If you want to do this, you’re not willing to go to the polls, myvote.wisconsin.gov, you can have an absentee ballot sent to you. You put it in the mail and send it in. We hope that the vast majority of people will do that. I’m working with the mayors across the state to make sure that we get the poll workers in place and it won’t be easy. I’m not saying that at all, but we need to get this election in in order to let democracy continue, and local governments and county governments work a good way.

Frederica Freyberg:

What do you need most now from the federal government?

Tony Evers:

We need — well, the good news is that one of the best things I think the federal administration did is they’ve kind of passed the baton for things that we need to the emergency management people at the federal area. So instead of every day wondering what’s going to be done at a press conference in Washington, D.C. and responding to that, we actually have people in their regional and local areas that we can get help. We’ve already got some — very good news. We’re getting some more respirators. We’re getting some more masks, in the hundreds of thousands of masks. All those things are good. It’s not enough. We need more, and we’re working with local people in the state of Wisconsin to get that to happen locally, but the federal government really needs to step up in the area of protection equipment and make sure that we have all the testing materials that we need.

Frederica Freyberg:

And lastly, you’re a former teacher, governor. What do you say to our children?

Tony Evers:

You know, this is a multifaceted crisis that we’re having here. So we have to make sure our kids are safe. That they’re mentally in a good place and we’re answering their questions directly.

Frederica Freyberg:

We leave it there. Governor Tony Evers, thanks very much, and good luck.

Tony Evers:

Thanks a lot, Frederica.